


We have lost a lot

by everythingispoetry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Drug Addiction, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Team Dynamics, Things are not easy, Tony Angst, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingispoetry/pseuds/everythingispoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was a young man, Tony had one steady girl, cocaine. Twenty years later, the adventurous past comes to hunt him in the form of an insane inventor who sticks at nothing and knows Tony's weakest point and suddenly Tony has to deal with his life turned into a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> I am very anxious about this piece. Really. I have no experience with drugs, but I will try to make it realistic. And I have no real experience with writing proper plot, but hopefully you will enjoy it.
> 
> Fill for this [avengerkink prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/15292.html?thread=32436156#t32436156)

**I**

**1986**

_‘Don’t do this, kid,’ an older boy – almost a man – orders Tony forcefully from across the room when he’s weighing  a bag he’s just got hold of _in his hands_. It’s white and shiny, seems enchanting and shimmering, even if it’s just lights dancing in front of Tony’s already drugged self's eyes. _

_He is sixteen and rich and he hates the whole world, and he hates the whoever-he-is too._

_‘Fuck you,’ he shouts through the crowd and makes a line of the drug like Jasper showed him the other day; he’s good with handiwork so it’s just a short moment before he takes the straw and a second later the white powder is already in his body, even if it takes it a few minutes to start working._

_The boy comes across the room, snatches the bag from Tony’s hand, throws it the toilet and flushes it down; Tony can see it all, but he doesn’t care. He could buy a kilogram of the drug if he wanted, anytime._

_‘Fuck you,’ he tells the taller boy again, pro forma._

_Later that year they become best friends._

 

 

**2013**

If things could get any more predictable, Tony would probably just end up laughing at the whole situation. It goes like this: there is a fight with a wannabe ruler-of-the-world who seems to be a typical too-powerful moron but turns out to be madder than expected (although Tony doesn’t learn that until later) and in possession of a suspiciously good tech.

Iron Man flies into an area close to the man, preparing to lay a final strike and finish the pointless battle that costs money and causalities for no real reason, and then – there is an impulse and the armor _just fails._ It can’t be EMP because Tony has a shield against those so they won't be a problem; it must be a disturbance of a different kind, then. Which usually means that magic or mutants are involved - and it’s the part Tony doesn’t like at all.

It’s not even important. No one is nearby to catch Tony as he falls to the ground, and before he can do anything, he’s being dragged in the suit into a huge van, cheese manufacturing company’s logo on the side, and then, in the darkness only interrupted by arc reactor’s light, a few people tear the suit off his body, giving him bruises and scrapes; when it’s done his hands and legs are tied, a gag is forced into his mouth and the truck drives off. It all doesn’t take longer than two minutes.

Tony counts seconds, minutes, hours in his mind, but he’s too exhausted and hurt and no matter how much he tries, he still falls asleep too soon into the ride.

***

When he wakes up, he is greeted by daylight and a beautiful view out of a huge window; there is a city of small houses and several big blue and grey towers and an ocean or a sea beyond, all bathed in sun, all covered with a warm yellowish glow.

‘Good afternoon, Anthony,’ a soft voice with a foreign accent says behind him, but he doesn’t recognize it and can’t place the accent. ‘How are you liking your room?’

There are a few steps and suddenly someone is standing in front of him, smiling. Tony doesn’t know the person, but it doesn’t mean that much since he’s met so many people in his life that they could be acquainted for years, to be honest. The man is tall and slender, wearing a pair of elegant trousers, a white top and black jacket over it. His face is… typical, Tony would say, no distinguishable features: he’s got dark eyes and short dark hair not unlike Tony’s, thin lips, sharp lines of cheekbones and chin.

Just a normal, well-looking thirty-something man that _doesn’t_ seem to be someone who would kidnap people, but that’s always misleading.

‘If you are going to imprison me, could you at least call me Tony? I don’t like Anthony. Just like I don’t like my hands tied, I don’t know why you’d think that, but I’m not into bondage,’ Tony tells the man with a fake sarcastic grin; if pleasantries then pleasantries, no problem, Tony is so good at acting fake.

‘Of course, then you have to call me Toma. And the bondage, well, that is necessary precaution for the moment, but I think we will be able to do something about it soon. We just need to talk for a-few-min-utes…’ the man drawls, moving a white wooden chair from the corner of the room to set it in front of Tony.

‘Where are we?’ Tony asks, trying to read the man, to find an answer to any of the hundreds of questions that are running through his head.

‘South America, but I’m afraid the more detailed answer is not mine to give,’ the man replies, sitting down. ‘I’d offer you a coffee, but with your hands it could be a bit awkward… Forgive me. Later – you must have some questions, and I can anticipate some of them, but just as well, you can guess the answers.’

‘If you want me to build you weapons,’ Tony says, arching an eyebrow perfectly, pretending not to care that he’s a whole continent away from home, ‘you know how this ended last time. The whole world knows. Boom!’

It would be better if Tony could gesticulate, but the man jumps a tiniest bit anyway, and then smiles even wider.

‘What an astounding performance,’ he says, cocking his head. ‘But you are wrong. I just want to have some – _fun_ with you. It’s enough for me that you are not making any more of your beautiful tech for the world right now. And you are here, I am delighted,’ Toma says, winking at Tony.

The man, Tony decides, is obviously mad, and fear slowly starts to crawl under Tony’s skin.

‘You know Nikola Tesla,’ Toma states easily, leaning back in the chair, ‘Of course you know. I come from not far from where he was from. I was born there, too, and raised in a small town. I went to school, I won prizes for being an excellent student. I told my parents that I wanted to be an engineer and an inventor, they were so happy! Tesla was almost worshipped around the region as the greatest scientist of all times. But there weren’t money in the family to send me to university and by an unfortunate chain of events I wasn’t granted a scholarship, so all I could do was study by myself, teach myself everything I would need in my life to be like him. You follow me?’

‘Yeah,’ Tony admits, wondering where the story is going, listening to each of the man’s words closely, as if there were an answer hidden between them.

‘I made a few nice things, entered some contests, but even if the jury would tell me my work is really good, they didn’t want to help me with finding a place to study and keep working. I was angry, really angry at that point, I could only imagine all the happy people who can pay hundreds of thousands for their degrees…’

‘Like me,’ Tony guesses. His MIT years were at least mentioned in every article anyone did on him, the youngest graduation with doctorate ever.

‘Like you, yes. Like hundreds of other people, too, only that you kind of… imposed yourself. Or the media imposed you on the world. So, I wanted to be one of the good guys, change this place for the better and all that – believe me, I am such an idealist! – but they didn’t let me.’

‘So it was the _bad guys_ who recruited you,’ Tony guesses, trying not to sigh, because come on, this is _so_ cliché that it’s almost unbelievable.

‘You can say so,’ Toma admits. ‘They found me and asked for my help. The mafia here, in South America, has a really big influence… They proposed me money and education and a possibility to work in exchange for my inventions and I was happy to oblige. I got two PhD’s, I’ve been working and getting the money my work is worth. And you see!’ the man exclaims, standing up abruptly, ‘I invented the device that made _Iron Man_ fall to the ground and not get up. The world now knows that there is someone they have to take into consideration, who isn’t steps behind you anymore. I’m a step ahead and it will stay like that.’

‘So, that’s why I am here, exactly? So that you can be the world’s most renown inventor?’ Tony asks, making a face. He’s feeling sore and a bit dizzy and really hungry, not like he’s going to admit that to the man, but the whole megalomaniac talk is just giving him shivers.

‘My bosses want you out of the picture. You make too many toys for the good guys, too many inventions that make their work more difficult, so they started to be really annoyed with you. And I, well, I just want to see you _suffer_ ,’ the man states viscously, with a pleasant smile, walking up to Tony and looking closely at his face. Tony can’t really move, so he looks away.

‘You’re not the only one,’ Tony murmurs, honestly, everyone knows he’s been kidnapped several times and he manages to get free each time, even in Afghanistan… ‘So, torture?’

‘I guess not, but it’s me who has you here now and not anyone else. And yes, you could say so,’ Toma starts, taking something out of his pocket, a small black leather-covered box, ‘but this is South America, _Tony_. I’ve got a special surprise for you,’ the man adds, saying the words slowly, as if he was tasting them, and opens the box, letting Tony see the inside: padded with black velvet –  there is a syringe inside, filled with a transparent liquid, and Tony suddenly has a _very, very bad feeling_. His heart momentarily starts to beat faster and faster and a cold shiver runs down his spine; he thinks he should protest, shout, _fuck_ , beg even, but he can’t, it just feels as if he was paralyzed as he watches Toma, with the same kind smile, install a fresh needle and prepare the syringe for injection.

 _Fuck_.

‘I see you know what I’m going to do, Tony. That’s good,’ Toma speaks up, his voice sweet as if he was talking to a kid. ‘You know, you should have been a nice boy when you were younger instead of letting the whole world know about your mistakes… Believe me, I was such a good kid… But we all get what we deserve at some point – you can choose, right arm or left arm?’

‘Please,’ Tony manages to force himself to say, eyes closed, humiliation and fear burning inside his body.  ‘ _Please_ , not this…’

‘Ah, but I’m sorry, it will be _exactly_ this.’

Tony’s arms are tied to the chair separately on his sides, so the man has an easy access to them; he kneels by the chair’s side and rolls up the sleeve of the blouse that Tony is wearing, then within seconds, he finds the vein, the needle pierces the skin and Tony feels an uncomfortable pressure that quickly dissipates; then the needle is gone and he’s left with nothing more but a stinging feeling.

It takes only half a minute for the drug to start working, and Toma stays close by, observing Tony’s reactions; Tony himself knows the fucking list too well.

When he starts to feel exhilarated, heart beating even faster, jaw clenched, he knows that this is going to be _bad._ Really, really bad – only that he’s just too ecstatic right now to care.

Toma gives him a radiant smile, hiding the syringe into the box.

‘You missed the feeling, didn’t you?’ he asks, whispering the worlds into Tony’s ear. ‘Of course you did. You missed _her_ , even if you tried to fool yourself into believing you didn’t. Oh, I love this!’ the man sings louder, taking a few steps away from Tony; the stream of words is loud and harsh in Tony’s ears and he’d very much like to reply, there are endless words waiting to roll off this tongue, but somehow he manages to stay silent. His mouth feels painfully dry.

He can’t stop grinning, though.

Toma puts his chair back into place, looks around and nods to himself, then he walks towards the door and when he’s passing Tony, he leans over him and hisses:

‘You will die hating yourself for how you _love_ what is killing you.’

Then he is gone.

Tony knows he should feel _terrified_ , but all he does feel is euphoria.

 

 

**1986**

_‘You are making a big mistake by sticking with that guys,’ Rhodey tells Tony. ‘They're nothing but trouble. And everyone knows very well what they like to do in their free time.’_

_‘Don’t pretend you are and angel yourself, sweetheart,’ Tony says mockingly, like always, not looking away from the machine he’s working on._

_‘I am twenty – and you are not even sixteen, when will you be sixteen?’_

_‘In three weeks, don’t make my heart bleed, you must have heard about the party I have planned. Everyone heard about it. You can be a guest of honor if you help me with persuading my bodyguards to keep their mouths shut.’_

_The last few words are muffled since Tony put a screwdriver between his teeth, as if he couldn’t just place it on the table._

_‘You will just bribe them anyway,’ Rhodey comments, taking a sip of his coffee._

_‘True,’ Tony replies, the screwdriver back in his hand, and then he turns around and flashes Rhodey a perfect media smile he’s learned probably when he was a toddler. There are dark rings under his eyes, his skin is pale, lips parched._

_Rhodey would like to say he doesn’t know where the boy finds the energy to go on so frantically, but he knows – and the worst thing is, he can’t do anything about it._

 

 

**2013**

The crash is softer, more subtle and comes quicker that Tony expected.

That is logical, of course, given that a drug injected always runs through the organism faster than any other. It worked like that on every drug Tony has ever tried, and there’ve been a few.

Cocaine, though –

‘Stop,’ he tells himself firmly, feeling even more achy and restless in the chair-bound position now, his skin almost itching after the beautiful twenty minutes of being blissfully high. ‘Don’t even think about it. Someone will find you,’ he adds, but he can hear the man’s – Toma’s – laughter ringing in his ears. South America, no traces left, of course, it could take a year to find him, or it could never happen.

That is much more likely than Tony likes lets himself think.

So, to focus his mind on something else, he glances around the room. It’s small but not cramped and Tony can see most of it from his place in the middle of the room; there is much more space in front of him than behind him given the echo, he knows without looking.

The doors behind him, the windowed wall in front of him. Bed on his left, behind it a tiny round table with a pot of flowers on the top. A cupboard on Tony’s right, and the other chair in the corner. Walls painted light beige, floor wooden, deep brown color. That’s all.

Simple, sleek and modern, eye-catching, with an amazing view. Nothing electronic, nothing that could be turned into a tool of some kind. The windows, Tony is sure, made of reinforced glass impossible to break. It’s a complete contradiction of any prison that Tony has ever expected to find himself in, if a situation like this happened.

Tony doesn’t have anything to do, especially with his hands tied, so he lets his mind wander, lets himself think of the battle and analyze all details, trying to figure out if there were any signs that the man they were fighting with was cleverer than they thought, but he can’t remember anything like that.

He doesn’t remember much before the fall, either, it’s all blurry and unclear; it’s usually JARVIS to do the detailed analysis second-by-second, with his cameras and sensors calibrated perfectly, counting time down to milliseconds. The A.I. wasn’t responding when Tony started falling, so whatever Toma’s device was, it must have shut off the electricity inside the suits; Tony was only lucky that the arc reactor was untouched.

‘Arc reactor,’ he murmurs to himself again, glancing down at his chest, the comforting blue light is there, untouched, constant. At least that much is okay.

It’s more or less two hours before Toma comes again; Tony doesn’t know exactly, since the drug has always made his internal clock go somehow unbalanced; he can estimate so much from the view of the town in front of him: it’s bathed in soft pinks now, about an hour before the sky turns completely black.

‘I see you are feeling all right, Tony, that’s good, that’s amazing,’ the man starts as soon as he finds himself where Tony can see him. ‘I’ve got something for you here,’ he adds, putting a brown paper bag on the table. ‘Dinner. I am sorry that it’s only cold food today, but we were all a bit… busy recently.’

Tony follows his movements, staring at Toma with blank face. More than the physical discomfort – he really needs to use the bathroom, _come_ _on_ , and clean all the dried blood off his skin – it’s the thought that he’s at the man’s mercy that makes him distressed. He really is at Toma’s mercy. Even if Tony is be a bit bigger and more muscular than the man, he's sure if he tried anything, he would somehow be contained a moment later; Toma really seems to be too smart to make a child’s mistake.

‘How about I untie your hands, Tony? Only that you’d have to promise me you will be a good boy and won’t try anything.’

No threats, so he feels secure, and Tony has no way of determining what kind of precautions did the man take.

‘You don’t even have to ask. Just tell me if you’ll be nice.’

‘I will, since you are such a _kind_ host,’ Tony replies cheekily before he can stop himself, making Toma even more delighted.

‘Fantastic!’ the man says and claps his hands before moving to Tony and kneeling on the floor to untie the ropes – no, _ribbons_. He’s been tied with fucking black velvet ribbons. This is officially the weirdest thing ever.

But it’s just one more indication of the man’s unpredictability.

A moment later Tony’s other hand is free and he rubs his wrists gently, helping the soreness and the cold heeling in his hands go away. Toma steps away, his head cocked, and the first thing Tony does is look behind, only to see an empty space and another transparent wall with  doors – no, there is one more doorframe on the same side as the bed, no doors though.

‘Yes, Tony, that is your beauty place. Come on, come on,’ Toma informs him happily, making a shoving movement with his hand.

Tony gets up from the chair and waits a few moments to feel his legs properly again before he takes a few steps, stumbling a bit, but it’s all very close. The bathroom is tiny, too, consisting of a shower that takes up three quarters of the space, and a toilet. That really in uncannily civilized for a holding cell, but Tony doesn’t plan to complain.

Toma disappears in the meantime and when Tony’s relieved himself, he’s back with a towel and set of clothing and hands them to Tony with the same pleasant smile.

‘You wanna me to have Stockholm Syndrome, huh?’ Tony asks, taking the things and putting them on the floor next to the shower.

‘That would be very interesting, I have to say,’ Toma admits with a gleam in his eye. ‘But I think you are a bit too strong for that. See? I even give you compliments!’

Tony cocks his head, staring at the man who is almost bouncing happily.

Everything is _so, so wrong_.

Toma leaves again without a word, waving at Tony, and for the first Tony sees the door open: there seems to be a palm-reading mechanism installed into the glass surface in the middle of the door, and an retinal scanner; probably no security on the outside.

Tony takes a long shower, cleaning the dirt and blood off his skin, making an assessment of the state of his body; he’s got a great number of big purple bruises and red scraps and cuts from the battle – and from having the suit taken off unprofessionally; it feels like his ribs are bruised, too, but otherwise he is as good as he was. That’s probably a good thing, but Tony can’t make himself rejoice.

When he steps out of the shower, the room is half-dark. He finds out that there is a jug of water on the table. Some stray mist lazily sneaks out from the bathroom fills the room; everything else is unchanged – and no one seems to be around, at least not in the part of the house Tony can see.

He puts on the clothes he was given – a pair of soft cotton pants and t-shirt, both a bit too big, but almost his size, stands in the middle of the room and looks around, but decides that he’s going to make an assessment of the place in the morning, since there doesn’t seem to be any light switch anywhere.

Then _of course_ he can’t sleep.

Tony is a light sleeper anyway – unless he pushes himself almost to the state of unconsciousness, but that doesn’t happen so often these days – and he doesn’t spend much time sleeping anyway, maybe four hours a day, seven to eight if it’s after two days. And – he’s just spend who knows how many hours unconscious.

Being in captivity of a madman, because there is no question as for that, is a petrifying thought and the more Tony lets himself analyze the situation, the worse it seems to be. He doesn’t know anything about where he is, no means to contact the world, nothing that he could use. It’s – it’s the best mind game he’s been pulled into, and that’s even without mentioning – _her_.

Cocaine.

Everything would be better, _hell_ , even waterboarding and having an open-heart operation drugged by half-legal and possibly lethal medicine. Any kind of torture, Tony prides himself in being able to bear a lot. A lot, but not everything.

And _her_ , it’s – he is at the man’s mercy. He’s been clean for almost twenty years and after one time, Tony can feel his body craving her again, already, the empty achy feeling in gut, the restlessness that is possible to ignore but only for now. Not for much longer. There is absolutely nothing to do in the room, besides staring out of the windows, and this is almost as difficult as feeling the drug slowly seeping into his veins, into all the cells of his body.

***

It’s maybe two or three hours of constantly-interrupted sleep that Tony manages to get, but when the sun starts going up, he knows there will be no more rest, even though the bed is quite comfortable and he has a blanket and a pillow and everything that makes him hate this place even more, because his body tells him _not_ to.

He stays in the bed thinking about the others. Pepper and the Avengers. He – he can only imagine what they might be doing now, how they might be worried, how frantic the tower’s common kitchen must be, buzzing with ideas, questions, plant. He _hopes_. If they don’t find him –

No. Better not to be pessimistic. Or realistic.

They all must be worrying so, so much, and Tony kind of feels sorry for making a mess and making himself a trouble yet again, but – it doesn’t matter now. The feelings. Whatever he might think about his not-so-newfound-anymore team, his friends. Not yet family, but maybe in some months, in some years, he would have called them that – _fuck_. He _will_.

Survival rule number one, don’t let yourself thinks of yourself as if you were dead already.

Tony counts minutes until he makes a mistake and finally drags himself out of the bed to have a closer look at the room; there surely are cameras hidden somewhere and whoever is observing must have great fun, staring as he lurks under the bed and runs his hands across the walls and traces all potential cracks in the structure; both parties know that it’s futile, but it doesn’t mean he can’t. There is nothing hidden, even the cupboard is completely empty besides two magazines from twenty years back, completely not matching the modern space, faded so much that it’s impossible to read them. In English, so that doesn’t help. Tony can only stare at the almost-white pictures, trying to figure out what they might have been.

Just as he tosses them across the room, angry and resigned, a figure appears behind the glass wall and a moment later Toma comes inside the room, bearing some nice-smelling food. Tomatoes and eggs.

‘Enjoy, Tony, I need to be going,’ the man states, putting the plate on Tony’s chair that is still in the middle of the room, and leaves quickly.

The silence rings in Tony’s ears, together with confusion that he can’t shake off, _what, no cocaine?_ It’s surprising and Tony hates how – how his body almost wants her. Desires her.

He’s fucked.

‘Sure, you better leave,’ he murmurs to himself, taking the plate from the chair and placing it on his lap as he sits down on the bed. There is a plastic fork, how sweet. ‘It all works even better when you’re not here, hmm?’

Tony eats the food slowly, deliberately taking his time, because _there is nothing else to do_. Nothing but – waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering what is going on in the world and expecting and trying to guess what the man might do. It’s – different from being in the captivity of simple brutes, of those who prefer physical force and violence and blood, and it’s more exhausting. More lethal. More disquieting.

Especially with the catalogue-like view of the house and a perfect postcard-like view of the town below, and the beautiful late summer flora.

So, Tony stares and thinks and stares some more, tries to sleep, to do _anything_ , including playing mental chess against himself, but he can’t focus enough to make the game make sense, he can’t focus on anything enough.

He walks around the room again, measuring distances, mentally mapping angles, trying to calculate the latitude of wherever he might be using the sun, but he doesn’t have enough data yet, so he in the end he just sits down by the window and observes the outside, bathed in warm sun, leaves moving on a wind he can’t feel.

He’s not sure how long he’s been waiting like that – the sun has moved considerably – before Toma comes again, with a bag in his hand.

‘Got you burgers, all-American, hope you will like them,’ he says, putting the bag on the floor next to Tony, and walks out.

Tony is sure that it’s just the calm before the storm.

 

**1987**

_In April Tony wins a contest for a program that could be used to command robots. It’s not an A.I., but it suits the purpose perfectly._

_For once, Howard is present during the awarding ceremony and Tony is beaming. He ignores his_ friends _from school and introduces his father to Rhodey only. Howard takes an instant liking to the man, twenty one now, going to graduate early – not as early as Tony, but no one is going to do that – with excellent grades and a dream to work for the Air Force._

_‘Thank you for looking out for my boy,’ Howard tells Rhodey, who smiles and says it’s nothing, knowing that Tony hates it all. ‘He behaves like such a brat sometimes,’ Howard adds in stage whisper, but Tony is above caring._

_He walks proud to the podium and shakes hands, takes the cup in his hands and dedicates it to his father with a smile that looks genuine to everyone but himself._

_When Howard is gone, Tony goes back to his flat, orders his bodyguards out and bribes them to stay in their place for the rest of the weekend, then calls Jason and Miriam over. He should dedicate the award to them, if he was trying to be honest, ‘cause it was them who provided him with drugs and it was drugs that provided him clarity of mind and endless ideas and the energy to stay up all nights writing the code in addition to effortless keeping up with classes and social life._

_It’s that night that he tries crack for the first time, it’s still a relatively new thing, but decides that he prefers the traditional coke. Works longer – and that’s what he needs, because there are endless things he’s got to do and there isn’t enough time._

**2013**

The next morning, Toma states that Tony’s been a good boy and tells him it’s time for his reward. Tony punches the man had five seconds later there are two two hundred pounds guys pinning him to the ground and Toma, with his face bloodied - he might have a broken nose, Tony guesses - he just stands there, the red drops falling on his clothes and onto the floor, and laughs with delight.

‘You’re just making it sweeter,’ he whispers into Tony’s ear when he’s been put on the bed, sitting up with arms and legs tied, but without a gag this time.

‘My fucking pleasure,’ Tony spats, watching frozen how Toma takes the familiar box out of his jacket’s pocket and prepares the syringe. He doesn’t try begging this time, having learned that his humiliation and admitting to weakness are not what Toma wants. Tony can’t guess what exactly the man wants.

‘What a beautiful, beautiful veins you’ve got here,’ the man murmurs in a low voice, preparing the syringe mechanically; Tony can’t tear his eyes away from Toma’s dancing hands, staring with morbid curiosity because he can’t, _can’t_ do anything else – and he doesn’t want to let the destruction just happen. Staring makes him feel a bit, a tiniest bit, as if he were in control.

He's petrified and his body _wants_ this and it’s the most terrible thing about this situation.

The needle pierces Tony’s skin, he doesn’t really feel any pain, and then the injection is quick and before he realizes, Toma is putting the syringe away and dripping some of his blood on the bed sheet.

Everything now is familiar, a lovely sequence, repeating like a shitty metaphor; the heartbeat and the pupils, the feeling is Tony’s muscles and the excitement that’s hard to contain, it all kicks in fully within half a minute. Toma stands there, observing and rubbing his face, smearing the half-dried blood and looking like a man out of a very cheap horror movie. When he sees Tony’s body react, he smiles, nods to himself and leaves without a word.

Then it repeats.

Again and again and again; it’s small doses but Tony knows that if it continues like that, his body will need more and more drug.

Toma brings him a _gift_ twice a day for a few days. Tony desperately tries to think of any way to make the man stop, tries talking and sweet-talking, tries bribing, tries shouting and crying even, but Toma just stands there with his usual smirk and waits until Tony stops his hysterics. Tony manages to lay a few more punches on the man, but each time it ends the same way, with being thrown on the floor brutally by the two residential goons.

And in the meantime, between the doses, Tony still has nothing to do.

He would prefer the fucking man to try to interrogate him, try to steal everything that Tony’s got in his mind – but the Toma _doesn’t._ He doesn’t seem to care about the fact that he could – theoretically – have all of Tony’s secretes and make the world his.

‘I will achieve all this on my own, as long as you don’t interfere,’ Toma tells him one time, his words sounding loud and colorful in Tony’s drugged mind. ‘I don’t need to cower before you and I don’t need to know your secrets because as long as you’re here, it doesn’t matter what’s in your head, and I – I’m acting now. It’s my showtime now!’ he adds with a giggle.

‘You know that there are people looking for me,’ Tony reminds him, his voice much too cheerful since he is having a hard time controlling himself. He still does try, though.

‘Yes, believe me, I know! Your disappearance has been all over the news and I’m quite sure your precious friends and the agency are checking all possible places for you, but contrary to your stay in Afghanistan, they don’t even know the country!’

‘I think you are underestimating them,’ Tony replies with a grin, but he isn’t sure if he believes his own words.

Toma just laughs again, he always fucking laughs and Tony can’t get the sound out of his mind even when the man leaves; it seems to be permanently echoing in within the room’s small _empty_ space.

The other day, Toma brings him a few sheets of plain white paper and a pencil.

It’s a temptation, because Tony could occupy himself with something that wouldn’t make his brain rot, but – he can’t. He can’t do any specs or write down any ideas, it would just be taken away, he is sure… But it’s so, so fucking difficult to stop himself, as the drug makes his think cleared, quicker, better, like – _back then_ , and his head is bursting with ideas that he can’t dare to express.

Toma is a scientist, an inventor, according to his words – Tony decides he can believe that for now – so he knows very well how terrible it is to do _nothing._ Tony can’t do any work, and if not then what he is supposed to do, write poems?

So, in the ends, he draws mini chessboards and plays with himself.

The papers lasts him for two days and then he discovers that it’s all gone, his drawings and the pencil and even the two newspapers from the cupboard.

***

The addiction is creeping up on him inevitably, even if Tony tries his best to fool himself, but his body’s reactions are more than obvious. Toma observes him closely and he must have noticed that Tony is getting used to the drug, and the comedowns are worse and worse every day, even if the change is subtle; Tony finds himself more irritated, more distressed and lethargic, and – _the headaches_. It’s been one of the biggest issues _back then_ , and Tony hasn’t missed them at all for the last two decades.

Then, after two weeks or so, Toma comes up, of course he does, with the most elaborate torture of all: he’s been giving Tony shots twice a day (changing places, always sterile equipment, even coming back to rub some sort of scar cream that makes the marks much less visible, in some crazy attempt at hiding the evidence), morning and afternoon, and suddenly – he doesn’t. One morning, Tony is already mentally prepared, all braced for the drug in his system, and there just isn’t an injection.

And his body, used to the routine, just _screams_.

Come to think of it, Afghanistan was much easier than this.

Being surrounded by terrorists who could kill him any second, having a battery attached to his chest, torture, the stench of death all around, seeing his _legacy_ in the remote sandy lands, the cold and the food and the pain, he hated it all, he hates it still. All that time, he’s felt nothing but hate and disgust.

Drugs are pleasant and make Tony ecstatic and energetic and help him come up with the most amazing ideas of his life, thought running wild, without any boundaries or logic’s limits; it feels good and his mind protests against going back to normalcy, boring and dreadful. He can see the world out of the window, the sun and the sky, cars and planes.

Afghanistan was purpose and determination, he has tools and options and activity, and he wasn’t there alone, he has Yinsen. Here, it’s him and _Toma_ and silence, all he had was the white paper and a pencil and it’s gone, too, and Tony knows he can’t get out.

***

Toma comes and goes, Tony tries to struggle a few more times but then he decides that it really is pointless, it doesn’t change anything. It’s been about a month since his capture and there is no indication that anyone is looking for – finding him.

And Tony knows that he’s slightly, slightly, inevitably going insane.

One day, when Toma comes with the drug, Tony just stretches out his arm obediently and looks away; the man stops for a few moments and hold his breath, but then laughs happily and administers the dose of the drug.

‘I’m so proud of you, Tony. I love seeing you like this,’ he whispers into Tony’s ear after the drug is already doing its job. Tony smiles, looking the man in the eye, and all he sees is pure _admiration_ and he feels – proud – when he realizes what he’s doing, he looks away quickly and stays staring at the wall until the man disappears. He’s in such a blissful state now that he can’t bring himself to care, but when the comedown comes and he fully understands what has happened, he drags himself to the bathroom and throws up at the realization just _how much_ he rightfully loathes himself –

– the _thing_ that he has become.

He spends rest of the day sitting on the floor in the small room, filled with a sweet scent of vomit. It’s – it’s the only place where he feels like he has some privacy, even though it’s obvious that there are cameras there, too, and there are no doors – just a doorframe, just a hole, but at least the walls are not transparent.

Toma comes later, seeming upset with Tony’s behavior and basically drags him to bed, giving him another shot and Tony doesn’t have strength to fight or to protest anymore.

It takes him a few more days to decide that he _hates_ staring out of the windows, what has been one of his main activities so far, because it almost bears a promise, and it’s been six weeks, over six weeks, and nothing has changed, it only gets worse and worse and if he’s not on the drug he has a pounding headache and feels like someone was staring at him, feels a strange gaze on his back even though there is no one there, ever, besides invisible cameras and Toma a few times a day; the house is completely lifeless, but looks perfectly normal.

The silence starts to ring in Tony’s ears and with the pounding feeing in his temples it’s constant and painful and he can’t think properly, can’t concentrate, can’t do anything.

But then Tony finds the answer and it’s been there all the time and helps the tiniest big: he just stays in the bathroom suite with the water running, either sitting on the floor or inside the shower; the soft murmur of water is like white noise, calming him and easing the restlessness just a tiniest bit.

***

‘Do you think I’ve got you addicted yet?’ Toma asks him sweetly as soon as he comes into the room. Tony is sitting on the floor, slumped, his back against the wall. He just raises his eyebrows in response, quite sure that his face says _are you fucking retarded or something?_ but the man only smiles. He always smiles. It’s terrifying.

‘Fuck you,’ Tony manages, looking somewhere behind the man’s head.

‘I’ve got something special for you,’ Toma just states, taking something out of his pocket, but it’s not the familiar black box. This one is smaller and silver, with something engraved on the top, but Tony can’t make it out. Toma takes out a small glass pipe. ‘Oh, it wasn’t after your times, right? It started in ’84, when you were a cute kid just starting your course in MIT… Yeah. Have you tried it?’ Tony doesn’t answer and Toma’s hand grabs his face the man kneels down. ‘ _Have you_?’

Tony nods.

‘Perfect. So you know how everything works!’ the man replies, letting go of Tony’s face and handing him the pipe. Tony doesn’t take it; they stay unmoving for a few long moments, like marble statues, and the world around seems to have frozen, too – but then Toma sighs theatrically and tuts in disapproval. ‘Well, your choice,’ he says, takes out the black box and quickly injects a bigger dose than usually – Tony can tell that perfectly by now – and disappears.

He doesn’t come back for three days and by that time, Tony is tired and achy and restless, he managed to sleep a total of maybe three hours, and he is hungry, so fucking hungry, he knows he hasn’t been eating enough ‘cause the drug reduced his appetite and now his stomach just hurts _so, so much_.

When Toma finally comes, he’s holding a perfectly-smelling bag filled with food, but Tony knows that it won’t be for free and he knows that he’s not going to resist because he’s not strong enough and it feels like he’s going to die anyway so what’s the difference?

So he takes the pipe and gives it back when Toma tells him to, crack already in his system, making Tony feel relaxed and happy immediately, making all the tiredness and pain go away, and it’s a bliss.

Even though he understands rationally that he is making a big, big mistake, he can’t stop himself. Toma is happy, says that Tony is a good boy and brings him only crack from now on; if Tony doesn’t oblige, he doesn’t get food and he’s as much as physically forced to smoke it anyway, in rather ingenious ways.

The marks on his arms heal until they are invisible.

One time, Tony even gets a book. It’s Dostoyevsky’s _The Idiot_ and Tony reads it in one go, not able to tear himself away from the first thing he’s been really able to occupy himself in weeks. It disappears the next day.

Toma brings him food and tells him about how desperately the US are looking for their golden boy. Tony doesn’t let himself think about his teammates, about his friends, because it hurts so fucking much and he is not sure he can remember their faces well enough. Everything that’s beyond the house, his well-lit, beautiful prison, seems to be a dream. He doesn’t let himself hope anymore because it’s been two months and a half and there is no sign of rescue and he – he is just sinking lower and lower and Toma is glowing.

Until one evening, almost exactly three months after Tony’s capture – it’s not like he doesn’t know, Toma likes to boast – the man gives him food for the usual… _price_ , and leaves. He doesn’t come the next day and the next and the next, and on fifth day Tony’s body is free of the drug and it makes him crave it like crazy; he is almost delirious with hunger and pain, he can’t even make himself move to the bathroom, to the safe place, just lies exposed on the bed and stares – and then he spots a familiar shadow of a jet on the bright morning sky.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> Please share your opinion, it's very valuable to me!


	2. II

**II**

 

**1987**

_Late May, Tony graduates_ summa cum laude _, as the youngest person to ever do so in MIT. (It's two days after his birthday and that was a_ spectacular _party that will not be forgotten for a long time, but all the people who took part in it were clever enough to not say anything and show up on the graduation looking fresh and composed.)_

_Howard is there for half an hour, takes pictures with Tony and Maria, smiling, and praises Tony to the journalists who desperately want some material on the famous family, but he doesn’t actually say a word to Tony in private._

_Rhodey graduates, too. Both him and Tony are glad to be out of the place at the same time, even if it means getting separated now: Rhodey in going to enter the Air Force. Tony… Tony doesn’t really know what to do. Howard and Obie want him to study further – but better yet, to start and internship for Stark Industries. His mother says she would prefer is he studied a bit longer before working, even though he’s just got his degree; she doesn’t push him._

_Tony is angry and driven and high most of the time, it makes him feel_ perfect. _He knows that going back to living with his parents is not an option, since it would definitely mean lack of freedom, and he’s grown used to his freedom. And that would mean no parties, no girls and no drugs, at least_ not enough _._

 _He is smart to realize that it’s not the best way to live his life, but decides to say_ fuck off _to the world and do what he wants. He is young, young and invincible._

_Just a few days after the graduation, Tony still lives in his apartment near the campus – he has the whole month to make a decision – Neil Young’s newest album comes out and while it’s not his 70s glory, there is this one song Tony can’t get out of his head, and it ends like this:_

Why do we incinerate

Why don't we illuminate

Around the world.

_Tony doesn’t know how, but between his unconditional love for cocaine that he is not going to deny, an absent mother, Howard producing most of the USA weapons even though he claims he is a pacifist, and the crazy shit the world is going through, Tony has grown up to be an idealist._

_So he decides to do just that: illuminate. Get a PhD as soon as possible. Work and travel and build neat stuff to his liking. Conquer. Make the world better._

 

**2013**

It’s after noon when Tony gets a feeling that someone is observing him – it’s stronger and more… corporeal than being aware of the cameras, he’s grown used to that – and when he drags himself up to look towards the inside the house, he sees a familiar figure.

Or phantoms a familiar figure, it could be either.

But the figure moves closer and closer until it reaches the entrance to Tony’s _cell_ and Tony is willing to believe that it really is Steve, having Captain’s muscle tone, his blond hair, those genuine eyes –

Captain’s hand grabs the handle and the doors don’t open. That is no surprise, if Toma disappeared, he probably knew that something was wrong – bad enough for him not to come and get his precious prisoner, but not bad enough to forget taking care of the place’s security. Steve tries to force the doors open, but they don’t move at all; Tony just stares with his eyes blank. He doesn’t mind waiting a minute or five or a day, now that he knows they are – there, so close, so close.

Steve doesn’t seem to think the same; he says something but the wall that separates the room from the house is completely soundproof and Tony just taps his ear and shakes his head for no. It’s a delicate, weighed move, but it makes his dizzy anyway, and he’s quite sure that if he got up, he’d throw up whatever _wasn’t_ left in his stomach. Steve tries to kick the door a few more times, but it doesn’t even flinch, so he makes the _time_ sign and disappears.

Tony’s head drops to the bed.

It’s only a few moments before Thor comes and _wrecks_ the wall with his hammer, sending a huge pieces of glass crashing on the floor, leaving a cascade of shards falling the floor with tingling rain-like noise.

Then he is surrounded by sounds, it’s all _Tony, Tony, Tony_ , it’s all his name and _are you all right_ and _of course he is not_ and _are you with us_ to which Tony nodds, not trusting his throat.

He can only imagine how he must look, there are – were – enough surfaces in which he could watch his reflection for the last few days, when he still had strength do drag himself up. Toma has cut his hair and let him shave, under observation from the madman’s curious eyes, but it’s been a week so Tony’s face is covered with a strange-length uncomfortable stubble, his hair an uneven mess, his eyes sunken and dark.

He must have lost at least twenty pounds, too, between the decreased appetite that _she_ gave him and last handful of days with no food at all.

‘We need to get him out of here and to a doctor,’ Steve commands, his voice almost not shaking, and that’s what they do. Thor picks Tony up carefully and with ease, as if he were nothing but a doll, and walks out of the room. Tony is too tired to even look at the rest of the house, at the second circle of  hell.

It takes them a moment to get to a car that’s waiting on the mansion’s driveway.

‘It’s five minutes ‘till we get to the jet, and there will be a doctor waiting, I’ve told them already. You’ll manage?’

‘Yeah,’ Tony rasps out, immediately regretting it as his throat feels like it’s on fire.

‘That’s good, that’s amazing, just don’t fall asleep now, okay?’

Tony just rolls his eyes slightly because come on, he’s not concussed or anything, but the he figures that maybe he looks bad enough to make them all think he’s going to just die.

He hasn’t lived through three months with Toma – why the hell is it always three months, anyway? – to die so easily. He’s quite determined to find out what has happened with the man, or what will happened with him, before he actually sleeps.

It seems like only a second before he's on the jet and the whole team runs around like mad; Tony would have laughed if it was any other situation. Some S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor he doesn’t recognize, but she is in the uniform, and Bruce connect him to EKG and oximeter and hook him up to an IV before the jet even manages to take off.

They talk to him, tell him what they are doing and what are the results of the quick tests, but Tony can’t bring himself to listen.

Just a few minutes earlier he was still – _there_. He has the room memorized so well, his body used to being cooped in in the small space, that he is quite sure he’ll automatically go to his right and try to find a bathroom as soon as he is let out of the bed, if he won’t consciously stop himself.

The doctor attaches another IV to his arm and then Tony blacks out.

***

When Tony wakes up, it’s not in a white room on a Helicarrier but in his own bed in Stark Tower, which is rather surprising. He is still attached to an IV, but that’s not unexpected, it must be fluids. There is a tube going into his nose, too, filled with a creamy liquid he had a change to be acquainted with: calories being pumped straight into his stomach.

There is no one in the room, but JARVIS speaks up as soon as Tony tries to sit up.

‘Welcome home, sir,’ he states with an artificial warmth in his voice. ‘If you are wondering where are your teammates, there has been an attack and they have been called to assemble.’

‘Where, J?’ Tony manages, his voice still breaking.

‘… to a few places, sir,’ the A.I. replies reluctantly.

‘What do you mean?’ Tony asks, lying back and closing his eyes; the artificial light he hasn’t been subjected to – other than the city’s street lamps far away – seems to make his eyes hurt. He can feel a lingering headache, too.

‘There have been five attacks of armed men with high-tech robots, there is no information about who has made those yet, in Washington D.C, San Francisco, New Orleans, Tucson, Chicago. S.H.I.E.L.D. has their regular member onsite, together with a few people they have managed to call in.’

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ Tony curses, because seriously, he has no idea what’s been going on in the world for the last three months. This seems kind of sudden and it probably isn’t at all, it’s just that all that Tony has seen recently was sunsets and sunrises and sunsets.

They don’t know exactly who is behind, which is bad, and Tony has no idea what happened to Toma, and he would _very much_ like to hear the story. He can’t help but connect those two facts in one in his head, even if it might be forced… He knows he is still too weak to even walk, not to mention fight anyway.

‘How long have I been unconscious?’

‘About 38 hours, sir. You were given medicine to make sure you would get proper rest without straining your body further; you vitals were very bad when you were recovered.’

 _And_ he’s been without _her_ for seven full days now, no traces of the drug in his system, but it really doesn’t mean he needs _her_ any less.

‘I have orders from Doctor Banner to issue another dose of the sleeping medicine if you agree to it. Your body is still very strained and it would only do you good, unless you will sleep on your own.’

‘You know I won’t,’ Tony murmurs, what is equal to saying _yes, please_.

He blacks out again, and it’s a pleasant feeling because it makes everything else go away, and Tony is not quite sure he can deal with his – feelings, at the moment. Both physically and mentally.

The next time he wakes up, it is dark in the room and dark outside and Tony sits up suddenly at the sound of someone’s breathing, there is another person inside and he doesn’t know who and he hasn’t been around a human being for more than fifteen minutes for such a long time and if someone is there it must be –

– only that it _isn’t_ , he realizes when Pepper’s soft voice emerges from the darkness and she puts her hands on Tony’s shoulders delicately, but the motion is firm.

‘It’s okay, Tony. You are in Stark Tower. I am here with you. Yes? Do you understand me?’

‘Sure I do,’ Tony assures her cockily, well, attempts, since his voice comes out all cranky; he lets her push him back to the bed though.

‘Do you feel okay? You’ve been asleep for over two days; JARVIS has been monitoring you, he said everything is okay and Bruce assured me it’s good for you to get all this sleep… He’s been reading your results on his phone –’

‘They are not here?’ Tony asks in confusion. Surely after so much time…

‘We’ve been having a bit of a… crisis, you could say,’ Pepper tell him reluctantly. ‘SI is closed for a week, since people are not advised to go out of their houses, you know, this is much safer this way, and I’m here since we’ve closed the offices and –’

‘Just what _exactly_ is happening, Pepper?’ Tony cuts in, his thoughts out of control, a crisis, what does crisis mean in Pepper-tongue? Nation-wide at least, it seems?

Just, _what the hell_?

‘According to S.H.I.E.L.D. during last few weeks there have been disturbances in various scientific research points all across the country, some things got stolen, there was virus here and there… It just all turned out to be an attempt to overthrow the government and even though it was not successful – the president and all the important people are safe and sound – there is an incredible mess in the country right now. Most of the police was sent out to deal with those groups – terrorists, they call themselves usurpers and _laugh_ at us, Tony, it’s insane – and normal people don’t go out on the streets since there are fights and they have _robots_ , too, quite ingenious. It’s – worse than the Chitauri, since they were almost everywhere…’

‘ _Were?_ ’

‘We are doing a good job at containing them now – haven’t you noticed? It’s _dark_ outside. Really dark. Almost all the electricity is down in the city. We are lending some from the arc reactor.’

Tony considers, but for the short moment he was actually up and looking through the window, it didn’t strike him as anything special, the darkness with scarce lights, and foggy stars.

It is what he’s been seeing for hours and hours and hours, from his widow in the magical room.

Tony’s eyes easily adjust to the familiar darkness and when he finally sees Pepper’s face well enough, he can tell she’s worried out of her mind, so he offers her a crooked smile. Whatever his brain and body might want to do, they have to wait.

‘Do they have – a leader, of sorts?’ he asks, the question sounding much more tentative that he intended it to be, but at least it doesn’t sound – personal.

‘There was a man, yes – how do you know?’

‘What is, was, whatever – his name?’ Tony ignores her inquiry, closing his eyes and trying to ignore his heart beating faster in his chest, almost like when –

_stop fucking thinking. Focus. Focus._

‘I don’t know, Tony, Fury might but it’s not important. This is important; are you okay? Bruce said you might be a bit dizzy and weak –’

‘I know what to expect, don’t coddle me like a baby!’ Tony snaps, immediately regretting it, but words of apology feel too big to come out of his mouth. ‘I’m okay, I’m good, perfect, not dying, I’ve been starved a little but it doesn’t matter, it’s nothing terrible, I’ll be okay! Just – just tell me where they are. JARVIS, positions?’

Tony can feel Pepper moving away from him, the shape of her body looking like a shadow in the darkness. JARVIS starts to recite the Avengers’ locations, based on the last calls, and they are split between D.C. and Chicago, since those two locations were the worst and also the closest. Funny thing that New York hasn’t been attacked, but maybe it’s just too well-protected.

‘ _Starved?_ And _a little_? You were – are still – underweight, you were underweight by ten pounds and it’s not something you can just wave off! You were almost too weak to breathe properly, and you tore the oxygen mask each time we’ve managed to put it on!’ Pepper exclaims, adding more and more words that Tony can’t quite concentrate on; the things she’s talking about seem only vaguely important and he can’t be bothered to care.

There is one thought in his head, now, and he can’t make it go away: _they don’t know_.

They don’t know, and Tony feels like he could make a victory dance and kiss someone in a thankful gesture and it’s better than dreams.

His dreams were that someone comes and gets him out, less and less likely to actually happen in reality each week – but someone came. And Tony is doing good. He doesn’t – crave _her_.

 

**1987**

_Tony ends up staying in his apartment all July, too, and there are two reasons: one, he still needs to make more detailed plans about how he wants to handle his future PhD; two, all his friends stay in the area for summer, working and having lots of fun and that’s not what Tony wants to skip._

_Even Rhodey is there, since he has a few more weeks before starting his training. Rhodey still hates when Tony hangs out with his crowd, but at least Tony manages to talk him into bringing some beer every time they meet, since Rhodey is 21 now._

_Howard is pushing Tony to stark working for Stark Industries, even if not officially, but Tony refuses. The more Howards insists, the better Tony know that he needs to be away from all that._

_The more Howard insists, the angrier Tony is and it always ends up one way; there is one way only to help him chill out and tell his father mentally to go fuck himself. Tony has enough coke in stashed in his apartment than an average drug dealer, he is sure, it’s all the best stuff. He greets her in the morning and says goodbye in the evening and it’s a perfect love-love relationship._

_It doesn’t really matter if he gets nosebleeds now and then; no one knows._

 

**2013**

It takes the country a week to calm down enough to go back to quasi-normal functioning; the power is back in all places and the shops are open again, as well as most businesses. Stark Industries is operating almost normally, under Pepper’s watchful eye.

It takes Tony five days to be let out of his bed even though he really isn’t feeling so bad, _besides –_ besides. Yeah. It’s not as easy to forget how his body got used to the drug when he doesn’t have some crazy conspiracy theory to occupy his mind. So he doesn’t protest too much when they insist he sleep a lot with a very pleasant help from medicine flowing into his veins; he ends up sleeping like twenty hours a day and it’s – great. It’s blissful. He doesn’t have to think at all when he is sleeping and it’s a total opposite of _the prison room_.

After the five days of feeling like dying of hunger, surprisingly, he feels nauseous every time he is awake and he one time he tries to eat something, he just vomits it quite soon, so they don’t force him anymore.

But Tony is doing ok, he thinks. Bruce insists he rest when they have a teleconference though; Pepper listens to Bruce as if his words were the voice of god. Finally, the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor comes – the Avengers are still out of New York – and does a quick check-up on Tony; she removes the feeding tube and tells him to eat light food in small portions every two hours and _not_ to strain himself.

Like that is going to happen.

Tony knows nothing was really wrong with him but malnutrition and weight loss and exhaustion, but it’s all better now.

Pepper asks him if he wants to talk about what has happened and he says no. She has expected a no, so she backs away quickly. Tony can’t blame her.

The two days before other Avengers come back, Tony spends mostly in the workshop, trying to find his rhythm but he _can’t_ and it’s _fucking terrifying_ , maybe even more than that first time when Toma pierced his skin with the needle professionally and –

_Shut. Up._

When JARVIS flickers the lights on and pulls up specs for some projects on the screens and holograms simultaneously, it feels like a bomb of light and data in Tony’s head and he closes his eyes immediately, shivers running through his body. Of course. Overstimulation. He’s been doing _nothing_ , literally nothing, and in a drugged state most of the time, so his perception is off and now he needs to go back to his routine – _slowly._

Tony Stark doesn’t do slowly, until this one time when he has to.

‘What the fuck,’ he murmurs, feeling the hum of the electricity and various other noises of the ‘shop and they bother him; he’s just too restless. ‘JARVIS, turn the holo off. And dim the lights to 50%, make it look natural. Drop this crazy florescent glow.’

‘Of course, sir,’ the A.I. replies and follows his orders immediately. There is nothing to be done with the echoing hollow sounds though, and somehow, loud music doesn’t seem to be a solution.

When Tony opens his eyes to see the workshop for the second time, it’s much better; only the screens are full of colors and information, but everything else is dimmed, and it feels like half an hour after sunset. Very well. It feels okay.

Only that it isn’t, Tony realizes before and hour has passed. It totally isn’t. He has too many ideas that have flickered though his head during those three months, all of them need to be written down as soon as possible, maybe not put into life yet but they _can’t_ be forgotten. He keeps going, talking with JARVIS, discussing, sparring verbally; it’s all great, it’s what he’s missed so much, but – it doesn’t make him feel any better.

He thought it would but it doesn’t and it makes him feel just worse. He is – overwhelmed, for the lack of a better words. And slow and apathetic and while he knows he needs to act, he doesn’t _feel_ that at all. His body only wants to go to bed, but he can’t fall asleep; he can imagine he could lay there for endless hours.

And he needs to know what has happened to Toma, if his suspicions are right, and no one wants to give him any information through the web, which is totally understandable given the latest adventures with computer viruses.

The Avengers all come back eight days after they found Tony and disappeared to save the world; they are tired – but okay. No one is hurt and Tony can’t help but smile widely at them. Everything seems so much easier with them suddenly around, even if Tony wishes they wouldn’t say so much at once; it’s confusing him. But okay. _Time_.

The first thing they do is, of course, order a lot of take-out and sit on the rugs and sofas in the main area. Tony discovers that he is finally feeling _hungry_ , as in not ravenous but actually feeling like he wants to eat and it might be pleasant. That would be good if he wasn’t aware that it’s just a phase of withdrawal, come on, he’s been through that so many times. It’s going to last for some time, until his body feels somehow satisfied, having substituted all the lost calories, and he’s going to feel like he could eat a lot all the time. One good thing in this situation, everyone will be only happy when he puts on weight, especially Bruce. Just – not too fast.

Moderation is the key and Tony’s always been terrible at it.

***

The next three days are being in constant motion and leave Tony exhausted, exhausted like he hasn’t felt in years or maybe decades. Another symptom. He would be tired anyway, between all the talks and debriefs and meetings… He manages to drag himself out of the bed in the morning though, so it’s not so bad. Or at least, it could be worse.

There is a meeting of Avengers with Fury and Tony finally learns some details about the attacks and the whole madness. It turns out it _was_ Toma’s friends who scheduled the mess, only that he didn’t boast so much and Tony wasn’t aware that the organization was worldwide and under the skin of many countries’ governments. Apparently, there have been problems with classified information and databases for a few weeks prior to the attacks, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. ones directly, but FBI, CIA and a few other agencies that would rather keep their actions secret were attacked.

It must have been planned for _years_ , Tony realizes.

‘What do we do now? Did you get him, the leader?’ Tony asks, his face impassive, even though he is dying to know the answer.

‘Yes, Stark, we’ve got him –’ Fury starts, but Natasha cuts in.

‘It’s not _him._ The man who took you. We’ve seen him once, but he – he got away. We are searching for him now. He seems to be one from the upper echelon, no?’

‘He is something like a head of science division,’ Tony tells them tonelessly. ‘He’s a scientist, and inventor. You already know he created the device that get the armor down, and I still don’t know what it is. Tragic life story, revenge and need to prove himself, he is a walking classic, only tad more insane, I give you that…’

‘We need to debrief you in detail about your captivity, anyway, Stark. Sometime soon.’

Tony blinks quickly, trying to calm down his suddenly too fast-beating heart. _They don’t know_ , he tells himself. He takes a breath and show Fury a big shit-eating grin.

‘There is nothing to talk about, honestly,’ he offers, knowing that all the Avengers are staring at him now with varying states of worry and disbelief on their faces. ‘No, really. I was captured, woke up in that room. Toma – the guy – he didn’t _do_ anything. I got beat up a few times when I tried to punch the hell out of him; there were two goons who came in and take care of me. Other than that? He brought me food, you _saw_ I even had an en suite. The biggest thing was that he saw a rival in me therefore I was not allowed to do _anything_. You saw the room,’ Tony says, looking at Steve who nods. ‘I didn’t have radio, tv, paper, books – well, I had one book for half a day – nothing. I couldn’t even talk to myself ‘cause cameras and microphones. And doing nothing is just as much of a torture as the physical one, when you have brain like mine that doesn’t know when to shut off.’

‘And we found you in such state because?...’ Bruce prompts, frowning; Tony can tell that they believe in his story because well, it is the truth, it’s completely genuine. It’s just not the whole truth.

‘When have you started tailing him?’ Tony asks in reply, looking at Fury.

‘We got more and more signals and managed to trace some and therefore get a vague idea of where in the fucking Nicaragua you were kept –’

‘And he knew that. He got that and started moving. Left me in the house alone, apparently he didn’t think you would find me and his point was not really _using_ me, just getting me out of picture. I’ve been in the room without food or anything for over five days. And before that, well, we’ve been arguing and I refused to eat sometimes, doesn’t really matter now, but if you’re wondering why I appeared so starved, that’s it.’

‘So – he captured you to _keep you_ ,’ Steve repeats slowly. ‘He didn’t torture you, ask you about your tech, the arc reactor?’

‘Well, he thought he was clever enough to figure everything out by himself. Apparently, he managed to make a big mess, so he wasn’t that far from the truth.’

‘We’re looking for him,’ Clint speaks up for the first time, his voice full of grim determination. ‘As soon as we know something, teams will be dispatched.’

‘Whatever,’ Tony murmurs. He doesn’t let himself care and doesn’t let himself think too much, either, because it means his thought inevitably swimming to the fucking aching emptiness in his gut, in his bones, _in his head_.

‘We will find him,’ Clint repeats before they move to another subject.

Tony, with JARVIS help, is asked to work with some IT guys from S.H.I.E.L.D. to create a data protection system that would be way better than the previous ones and he agrees. At least it will be something – useful, and he can focus on one thing instead of trying to somehow make jumping between a dozen work.

***

It doesn’t work.

Tony can’t get how it can _not work_ , but it doesn’t. He just isn’t able to distract himself with friends, with work, with duties, and he really tries. He gets up at normal hour and drags himself out of the bed even if he is feeling too fucking low to even think about what they day is going to bring – that shouldn’t be so surprising. Telling himself _you’ve been on the drug for three months only, pull yourself together_ doesn’t help. It’s been round doses, then it’s been crack and that’s the worst shit ever, Tony knows too well.

But he goes on.

He gets out of the bed and ignores his body screaming, goes to the kitchen and eats three times as much as he would normally, until his stomach hurts, because it feels a bit like it’s going to make the craving go away.

Then out of the penthouse, he meets the IT guys in one of the R&D levels, now shut off for SI employees, open only to secret agents. They discuss things and write codes and Tony create a minor _not_ self-conscious AI to control the system the five men are working on. JARVIS is a lot of help and the work is going well, but Tony’s thoughts wander off the topic _all the time_. Literally. Trying to keep focused on one thing, with so many stimuli around, is a fucking torture, almost more than –

– okay. No exaggerations.

By the lunchtime Tony is hungry _again_ and it’s ridiculous, but he stuffs himself _again_ and it doesn’t help _again_ ; he is not disguised with himself only because he knows it’s a normal physical reaction and his body will calm down soon, stabilizing its needs.

Afternoon is doing his share of work for SI and trying to go through the list of one word or one sentence projects that he’s managed to write down, cataloguing the things he’s managed to come up with and analyze while in captivity. Most of them totally don’t make sense when he is sober.

Dinner is a team thing and everyone praises Tony for putting mind to gaining the weight he’s lost; that’s like thirty pounds to gain, in muscle mass and fat. Tony smiles and steals the conversation spotlight all the time, feeling somehow self-assured with his friends around. It ends with a headache.

After the meal, Tony goes to the workshop and lets Avengers think he's working some more, being his usual self, while in reality he just goes to sleep. He is tired and apathetic and no, he doesn’t even want to fight those feelings. It will all pass in a few weeks. It’s normal. It’s a phase.

He keeps telling himself that.

Just one time, it’s just four of five days after the team came back, Tony just _loses it_.

In private, in a calm safe space and no one ever learns about that, but he knows. He is aware of what he has been turned into.

It begins like this: Tony knows very well that he should be working on the A.I. code; normally he would have it done in fifty hours of being closed in the workshop with at least twenty cups of coffee and energy bars. It’s urgent and everyone expects him to do just that, to focus completely on his work like he always does, and given the importance, Tony is sure even Steve would not be as angry at him for locking everyone out of the ‘shop. Rational reason, they would all just say _okay, you do that Tony, just get this one thing done._

And he can’t do it like that. He's trying to, of course, but he can’t even manage eight hours of work a day on the project. JARVIS helps, but – it’s not enough. JARVIS can’t control what is in Tony’s head and that’s what he would need.

Seeing a shrink is out of question – _at least for now_ , Tony fools himself. No time.

So it’s five days and Fury calls, telling him to hurry a bit. Tony lies to him and says that the A.I. isn’t as easy as everyone seems to think, which is a lie but no one is completely aware as Tony writes his JARVIS-based codes differently from other people and only he is aware of how it’s done. Fury asks if he can be done by the end of the week – that’s in three days – and Tony says yes.

But he can’t.

He tries, though, he really does, but somehow, his thoughts are either too fast to follow or to slow – mote often too slow – and the work just doesn’t go well. Tony tries breathing deeply, calming himself down, calming his distracted mind, focusing his attention because he knows all this is ridiculous. He _cannot_ let Toma win like this; the man didn’t really win when Tony was in his prison, and he _cannot_ be allowed to win _now_ , when Tony is – free.

 _You have never been free_ , a voice whispers at the back of his head, repeating the words that Toma liked to murmur when he cleaned Tony’s arm before a shot. Tony laughed at the man. He thought that after _twenty years_ he would be able to control himself. Apparently, he is too weak and to pathetic to actually do.

It’s something he’s never experienced before, the inability to work normally, and it’s terrifying.

In the afternoon, Tony tries to distract himself with some physical labor, working on his cars and a few prototypes for SI but he _can’t_ and he ends up throwing the tools all across the room, breaking something in the meantime but he can’t bother to look up to see what, the anger and the disappointment are burning and it hurts, the restlessness hurts, the exhaustion takes over his limbs and the constant noise makes him even more distressed, makes his head _hurt so much_ and Tony’s not even sure it’s physical.

He gets up from the floor where he was trying to fix a robot prototype, probably only making it worse, and takes whatever he can find on the workbench and tosses it with all force he can muster, enjoying the sound of it hitting something, of glass pieces falling on the floor with a musical tingling. He is vaguely aware that Dummy, who sees that, scatters away and hides in his charging dock, together with other robots, and he feels guilty, but that’s just an underlying feeling under the _loathing_.

‘I can’t fucking do this,’ Tony whispers to himself, breaking yet something else in the rampage. ‘I just can’t, I can’t, I can’t,’ he chants, feeling very much like punching someone, something, banging his head on the wall, anything that would make the feelings go away.

JARVIS tries to get his attention, but Tony just recites the override that mutes the A.I. and prevents him from telling anyone what is happening.

It takes him maybe half an hour before deciding that _really_ he can’t go on like this.

Sure, the symptoms are going to pass, but with the amount of drugs he has in his system, Tony knows it’s going to take weeks before he is – stable again, and months before he stops _craving_. Especially that he’s always had addictive personality and he’s always been bipolar – not diagnosed but certainly behaving like bipolar.

And there is no time. He has vowed to make the world a better place, to change things, back when he was a kid and then after Afghanistan, and… he can still change the world. _Even if_.

So the decision made, he instantly feels calmer and more stable.

First, clean your hands and face and look presentable. Second, put on appropriate clothes. Third, a bit of disguise. Fourth –

‘Make the bots clean up this mess, J,’ Tony says as he’s leaving the workshop, careful not to step on glass, his heart beating in a steady calm rhythm. It should be scary how it works, his psyche, but Tony can’t afford to be scared now.

Even after being out of business for twenty years, he knows very well how to find his way to drugs, and it’s only an hour before he’s back in the tower with a small bag in his pocket.

‘JARVIS, black this room out, no cameras, no audio, no sensors. Leave it just to me, I need some time to myself only. Lockdown active until I say otherwise, but you know that.’

‘Yes, sir,’ JARVIS agrees tentatively and does as he's told.

Tony’s hands automatically follow the sequence of movements he’s done countless times before, without a second of hesitation, without any trembling or fear of the voice of consciousness. There will be time for that later.  He doesn’t let himself feel guilty. And it’s just a small amount for a few days, to finish the projects.

The scary thing should be that Tony believes in his own lies, but he can’t care when the drug kicks in; instead her stifles a giggle. His mind clears in the matter of seconds. The white noise in the background seems even more pronounced, though, but it takes Tony only a few moments to figure out the best solution.

He peels his clothes off, all of them, and when he’s naked, he walks across the room to the bathroom, steps into the shower and lets the water flow. It surrounds him, with the slightly warm sensation on his skin, a steady soft touch, calming pressure, and the familiar noise that finally makes his feel completely safe.

The first dose – a small one – he lets himself sit in the shower and just _enjoy_. The crash is as soft and nice as after the first time with Toma. The hunger is gone, the aches, the lethargy, and Tony finally feels like himself.

The second dose, he moves to the study attached to his personal rooms and sits in front of the computers to write down the code.

With _her_ help, it’s done in one night. Tony doesn’t sleep even a minute and in the morning, he goes for a run, fresh air helping him ease the remains of a headache. He doesn’t let himself think about reasons. It’s good. He is okay. 

But he doesn’t stop.

 

**1988**

_‘You're crossing a line here,’ Rhodey tells him when he is out for his first leave. Two days, and he decided to spend one of them with Tony. Tony doesn’t tell him how grateful but surprised he is, that instead of being with his family, Rhodey would choose to be with him._

_‘I need to do this in a year –’_

_‘You don’t fucking need to get your PhD in a year, Tony. No one does that.’_

_‘Exactly –’_

_‘You are a moron. Look at yourself! You’ve lost even more weight, you’re eating painkillers as if they were candy, you don’t even understand yourself half of the time when you are high. You are better than this, Tony. You don’t need this,’ Rhodey says, making Tony smile grimly._

_It’s cute that the man has such faith in him. But really, he knows that no one who is not looking for the symptoms knows, he’s been careful with that. He’s the best student and he_ is _going to finish his PhD in a year and everyone knows this; he is his usual charming, elegant, overbearing self and everyone just nods at that._

_‘I wish I could stay with here to have an eye on you,’ Rhodey adds. ‘I hate myself for leaving you here to your fucking stupidity.’_

_‘I’m fine, Rhodey,’ Tony replies sweetly; he’s tired and probably needs some sleep finally, after three days up, finishing part of a project according to his self-imposed schedule._

_‘You are not fine,’ Rhodey insists, but then lets it go._

_He rummages all of Tony’s hidden places and throws out all the coke Tony’s had stashed, probably worth a few grand, not that it matters. Tony appreciates the concern, even though they both know it’s pointless._

_‘Just don’t die before I see you next time,’ Rhodey tells him when he leaves. Tony laughs._

 

**2013**

It takes the team three months to notice something.

Tony has perfected hiding when he was a teenager and it turns out this, just like muscle memory of making a line or self-injecting, is something that stays with you. Honestly, it’s not even difficult. Maybe it would be, if anyone suspected anything, but they don’t, they don’t have any reasons to and Tony isn’t giving them any. He is the usual ADD-like, arrogant self, the Tony Stark they know, and spends most of the time in workshop. He never misses a day, always is where he is needed. He makes a point of eating, too, even if he’s nowhere near hungry; he must have put on like five pounds the first week, and has been getting a steady one up a week to satisfy Bruce’s and Pepper’s motherhenning.

It’s enough.

After finishing the A.I.-controlled firewalls for S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony can finally get to all the one-line projects that are waiting for him on the database and some other things for SI that he was supposed to be doing when he was… away. Everything is going splendidly, of course it is. It’s easy to focus and work for hours without a break, sleeping three, four hours a day. The projects are being done one by one, Tony’s mind on high speed, letting him do two things at once. He gets used to the lights and the noises, to the information being thrown at him all at once; his body and mind finally seem able to deal with it.

It’s a complete opposite of _the prison._ He is – he's making use of it. It's for a reason.

But Tony doesn’t need to justify himself.

JARVIS is blacked out in his apartment, on standby mode that gets him activated is his full name is said _by Tony only_ , so that Tony has all the privacy he needs, and no judgment. The A.I. of course can tell something unusual is going on, since Tony’s heartbeat if faster and his blood pressure elevated, but Tony forbids him speaking with anyone about his _health concerns_. JARVIS has to obey.

There are still hours when Tony ends up spending under the shower, in darkness, listening to the noise of the water encompassing him; it makes him feel safe and stops all the eyes from staring at him and it’s good. He doesn’t let himself dwell on how crazy it is, relying with his life on hiding in a bathroom, on pure physical sensations that he should _hate_ but he doesn’t. As soon as Tony is out of the room, free of the noise and the soothing scenery, he pushes it away. No thinking of what happens there and why it happens outside of the bathroom, that’s a good rule. _What happens in Vegas only stays in Vegas_.

***

But then it happens.

The reason is one and easy: S.H.I.E.L.D. captures Toma, after almost four fucking months of searching, all agencies and WSC-controlled units looking for him. The man really is too clever for his own good.

Fury calls Natasha who comes to Tony immediately; they Avengers are living a few floors below Tony himself.

‘We’ve captured the man,’ she states after Tony’s allowed her to enter the workshop, taking a minute or two to make it look presentable enough and make sure he himself looks _ok_.

‘I want to see him,’ Tony shots back firmly. That’s not true, though, he doesn’t want to see Toma at all. But he _has to_.

‘As soon as he’s in the USA, we’ll let you know. They found him in North Africa, they're flying here at the moment,’ Natasha informs him and leaves, already taking out her cell to call Fury or whoever.

‘Not too far away from home,’ Tony murmurs to himself, ordering JARVIS to save everything he’s been working on and decides to go to his room and get some sleep and clean up a bit, if he’s going to go out to people. He has to look presentable – no, _impeccable_.

Before he gets to his room though, Natasha catches him again, her face guarded.

‘Well, you can’t meet him,’ she states and Tony knows everything already, but lets her continue. ‘He had an ampule of poison. Bit it. Died before anyone could even move.’

‘Of course he did,’ he replies and continues to his room, but instead of sleeping, he goes to the bathroom, gives himself a nice pretty shot in the arm – for the first time _since_ , he’s just been having fun with the powdered coke so far, works longer – and lets the water fall on him and lets himself wail.

It shouldn’t matter but it does.

He doesn’t really know himself what he would have expected of the meeting, answers for his questions? Toma admitting to what he did – did he really do something? Revenge? Seeing the man humiliated and in pain and hating himself to at least half of the extent that he made Tony hate himself?

Maybe he’s like justice, not only for what was done to Tony, but for what was done to other people because of Toma. There isn’t a good answer – there isn’t a real answer. It’s all just a mess in his head, a fucking mess. Death is not justice. Such a quick, painless death is _not_  justice.

But if the man didn’t kill himself, he would probably ask S.H.I.E.L.D. how Tony was _coping_ and it would be result in a mess. So maybe it’s better this way.

Tony thinks that for about three hours before he can’t stand the crash and gets another shot and knows he's fucking everything up but he can’t stop himself.

They leave him alone for a few hours, S.H.I.E.L.D. and his teammates, which is normal and understandable. They know he's a private person, no matter what the media might think, and that he prefers to think about everything on his own, undisturbed. That is true, that is so true. Tony is glad they respect it although at the same time he is aware that he really shouldn’t be.

Then there's another shot and another, all perfectly measured so that he won’t kill himself – come on, he knows him limits, he knows limits of a human body very well – but it’s enough to make him lose himself.

Of course there is nothing surprising in that, too. It has all happened before.

It’s just that he _can’t_ control himself at this point and there are things around him that don’t exist and it’s scary and amusing at the same time and he doesn’t know what to do other than to go with the visions.

He doesn’t remember that much of what happens next, but he knows he goes down, at least he is dressed, and he is acting out of his mind which is a pretty accurate description and the Avengers don’t have an idea what is happening and what to do because hey, he’s never been acting this insane before and that’s saying something. Tony think it’s mildly amusing that it takes them a few minutes to put two and two together because they all know – the whole world knows – about his past, about his love-love relationship with _her_.

It’s all kind of obvious since he’s been clever enough to actually put the needle to his arm instead of just smoking. Or snorting. It would be less conspicuous.

‘You’re fucking high, Tony,’ Clint states the obvious and Tony _giggles_ and runs away, locking himself down in the workshop because it’s a safe space and whatever might be around him, chasing him or whatever, it’s not going to harm him in the workshop.

‘Toma’s never been this much _fun_ ,’ he murmurs to himself, laying down on the workshop floor and ordering JARVIS to make a holo-sky above.

He knows they want to get into the workshop so much, but hey, he’s been clever enough to make a code that doesn’t have an override. Even Pepper doesn’t have a secret password.

JARVIS tells them the truth, that Tony isn't going to die, and they let him be – for some time. Tony knows it’s for some time, but he honestly can’t care about five minutes in the future.

***

The crash, of course, is _epic_. Or maybe that’s not the best word because it means it’s something good. It isn’t. It’s just so, so immense.

Tony hasn’t experienced anything like that for over twenty years, and it was never one of the things he’s missed.

He stays in the workshop for a day because he can’t imagine facing _them._ JARVIS tells the Avengers that he's okay and they come and try to get in all the time, but the workshop is too well-guarded for that. Thor-proof and Hulk-proof, thank you very much, he’d never make it possible for those two to come and destroy his toys accidentally. Tony orders JARVIS to make the reinforced glass wall transparent and they can see that he is in fact alive and functioning.

They want to talk. Clint actually writes it on the glass with a sharpie, in a perfectly even handwriting, as if he used mirror-letters every single day: _Stop this fucking farce and talk. You’re not getting out of this._

Tony likes to think that he could get out of this mess because he could just throw them all out – make JARVIS throw them all out of the building. But he isn’t that insane.

So he finally goes out because he's _hungry_. That’s simple. He’s gone through everything that he’s had in the workshop on the first two weeks of being back in NY and never bothered to replenish the supplies, other than water and bourbon. So, he is _starving_ and he doesn’t have the patience to wait or to ignore the feeling. It reminds him of being with Toma a bit too much, too.

See, it’s all primal instincts. He is a fucking animal.

‘Tony, just – do you want to –‘ Pepper starts, completely at loos of words and wow, that doesn’t happen often. Tony snickers.

‘Do I have to explain myself to you?’ he asks between bites of his sandwich. Within five minutes everyone was sitting around him in the kitchen, as if no one had better things to do than wait to assault him.

‘Try not to,’ Natasha replies, the undertone sweet and deadly. Tony considers.

‘Okay,’ he says in the end, flashing her a smile.

‘Tony, I just don’t know if we understood it correctly –’ Bruce starts, concern obvious in his voice. Cap just stares with questioning and sad look in his eyes.

‘Was there something to misunderstand?’ Tony cuts in. He's _not_ going to explain himself to everyone, he’s not going to tell him them everything, it’s _buried_ , it’s fucking unspeakable – he’s _not_.

‘Tony,’ Pepper states with a heavy sighs, observing him closely. She looks as if she didn’t sleep for a few days and Tony feels a pang of guilt. ‘Just – _why_?...’

Tony takes a few moments to answer since he’s just taken a  huge bite of his sandwich. It’s rather anti-climactic, having all the eyes trained on him, even though he should be used to that by now. He can’t bring himself to meet their gazes though.

How do you tell your friends that you’ve been brought down and made a prisoner of your own instincts? That you’ve been too weak to resists, too weak to say no, too weak to maintain your dignity? That between the comfort and beauty and luxury of a perfect holiday resort you’ve been _dehumanized_? Because that’s it, right? Tony knows that with the two weeks of withdrawal he should have made it. He should have stopped. He should have been okay, because the worst part was behind him and he was free and it was okay – only that it wasn’t.

He should have asked someone for help, but that’s something he has never been able to do.

‘I needed to,’ he replies finally. It’s quiet and subdued, but it’s honest. Offer s partial truth and everyone is going to believe you.

‘But you’ve been clean for so long and now, you just – you just what?’ Clint asks, leaning across the table and staring at him. Tony looks away, of course he does, but he smirks.

‘I just did,’ he says. It’s better than telling the truth. Everything is better than the truth, even if it means they will despise him now.

How do you tell your _friends_ that you are this wild, unpredictable, tragic and self-destructive guy that they thought you’ve grown out of being, and you let yourself be? That you let yourself and everyone down?

‘After all this time,’ Steve half-states, half-asks. The way he is frowning is really kind of painful to watch, since his face is so genuine and confused and hurt. But – it doesn’t matter.

Tony knows perfectly that after a certain time of being clean, not to mention decades of being clean, you should have been able to make a decision _not to_. And letting them think it was his decision is inevitable, and yes, he would loathe himself for that, too. He does anyway, doesn’t he?

‘How long has it been going on?’

Natasha’s turn. Cold voice.

Just wait until Thor asks, if he gets what it is about. Tony isn’t sure Asgardians get addicted to things at all.

‘Two months,’ Tony lies. Giving himself a time frame of a month and a half between coming back and starting the drugs seems okay. Like, not that likely to get psychoanalyzed straight away. ‘Are we _done_?’

‘We _aren’t done_ , Tony,’ Pepper says. She is so fucking disappointed that Tony wants to disappear. ‘You – you need to stop. Okay? You need to _stop_.’

‘Of course I do,’ he brushes her off and finishes the sandwich.

It’s kind of humiliating, the whole scene, but he’s had worse. And – he can understand them.

‘Are you going to start – rehab? A treatment? Meeting someone, to help you?...’ Bruce asks softly, massaging his temples is if he had a headache.

Tony raises an eyebrow. He isn’t – not yet. Not yet. He will, just not right now, and he tells them just that. Apparently, it’s not satisfying.

‘Do you honestly expect us to just – let you do this? When we are here and we know what’s going on?’

‘Do you think you can stop me?’ Tony counters and it’s bad, because he's starting to get angry at them. For the attitude. For the lack of – but well, does he have the right to expect anything at all? What, compassion? Understanding? ‘No, you can’t. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m – I’m okay. I’m in control and it’s not a fucking lie even though you _will not understand._ Unless you try, and you don’t want to try –’

‘There is nothing to understand, Tony,’ Pepper says tiredly, but there is no touching. No hugging, no physical contact. Tony _know_ , he really does, that they are just as uncomfortable as he is, but it still hurts a tiniest bit.

‘We’ll ask a psychiatrist from S.H.I.E.L.D. –’

‘No.’

‘Then you find one on our own –’

‘No!’ Tony exclaims, getting up from behind the table. ‘I will, but I need _time_ , can you fucking give me some time? I won’t see anyone now and I won’t go into treatment in this very second beca–’

‘What are you waiting for? It’s only going to get worse!’ Clint counters, raising his voice to match Tony’s. Perfect. That was the only missing element of the crazy puzzle, arguments. Like in a family, exactly what Tony remembers.

‘I will. Just – let me make the decision, okay?’ Tony replies, making his voice deliberately quiet and soft. _Calm yourself down. Prove them you are in control_.

‘You are not thinking rationally,’ Natasha quips in and Tony grits his teeth. Yeah, sure, trust the residential makeshift psychologist to know everything. ‘We can’t afford to wait and let you make a decision, you could be a liability in the meantime, if we get called.’

Oh, the magical word. The magical fucking word.

Tony isn’t sure he can handle much more of this, with his body being on the depressive comedown and his mind slowing down and tired, and with the impossible-to-ignore need to just go away and hide in a calm soundless place, in a semi-dark familiar corner where he can calm down and there is _no one_.

‘No, I am an adult, _Natasha_. I know what kind of a fucked up situation I made this _myself,_ thank you, and believe me, I am sorry,’ Tony states truthfully, and the sentence makes his gut ache because there aren’t words to express _how sorry_ he really is. ‘But as much as I appreciate your help, I have to do this in my own time and it’s not negotiable because otherwise it _won’t work_. Capisci?’

‘No –’

‘Nothing is going to happen. _Nothing_. You’ve got to trust me on that. I’ve been functioning with his for some time now and you haven’t even noticed. I can take my time to –’

‘ _No,_ Tony –’ Bruce starts again and hell, Tony really thought they would be smarter than this –

‘Clearly you can’t be treated like an adult,’ Clint states at the same time and Steve murmurs something that Tony doesn’t hear and suddenly they are all talking at once, no one even minding him anymore, discussing between themselves what Tony _has to_ do right now and fuck, he knows he’s made a mistake but it wouldn’t have worked otherwise, he _had to_ ‘cause it was incredible responsibility for the whole country and more and – they don’t want to listen.

‘I’m done with this shit,’ he states, suddenly losing patience, moving from inside the circle of people towards the door. They suddenly go quiet. He’s – he’s just made a decision, right now, okay? Probably a bad one, but he will do it. Whatever it takes. ‘I know that you care, okay, in your own way, but you don’t get it and I’m not going to deal with his, I’ve been functioning for months and years before and nothing happened and I’m not going to just be what you want me to be now, a fucking saint. I’m not going to just stop now because you want me to, it’s like the fundamental mistake I’ve made and I’m not going to make it again. Will you _leave me alone_ and _give me time_?’

It’s enough to look at their faces to knows the answer. It hurts, but – but it’s logical they don’t understand. It’s better that they don’t.

‘I’m going to Malibu,’ he states, standing in the doorway.

‘So you are just going to run away from the problem?’ Pepper asks, looking at him intently, but Tony ignores it because it hurts. But it’s better that they consider him disgusting rather than weak. Disguising is still human, even if Tony doesn’t feel like that so much.

‘No, ‘cause I can’t fucking run away from myself,’ he snaps and disappears.

No one goes after him.

Before he leaves, he spends half of the night sitting in the totally dark bathroom without _her_ , enjoying the sensory deprivation, feeling the soft water falling onto his head and back and arms, sliding down his torso and face, ever-moving and never-changing and perfect.

Tony’s known early on that the only thing he would lose from living on chemical dependency would be his life. At least if he pretends to choose to do drugs, he’s controlling his own negative outcome. There is – at least a creepy sort of investment in that.

He doesn’t need to pack a lot of things, there is a second set of just about everything in Malibu, save his robots and suits. JARVIS sends a notice to get his StarkJet prepared and calls people to take care of transporting the bots to the airport and then into the plane, and the only things that Tony needs to take from the tower is some of his favorite pieces of clothing and a few personal items.

Easy.

He sneaks out of the building as if he were a thief, just after four in the morning, knowing that it’s even before Steve’s usual morning run. They are going to make it - him and _her -_ and then he will pull himself together.

He just needs to find a reason.

Because right now it’s all fear and anger and nothing else. Tony knows you can wake up in the morning, and say: _I'm not to cause any more serious damage to my health_ , or continue to do so. But if you do choose to recover, then you have to replace that fear with some sort of faith and they don’t get it and whatever he has now is apparently not enough, so he’s going to look for the right answer.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all soooo much for all the comments :) I was very happy to hear that you liked the first chapter and I hope you like what I've done in this one. Please leave me a comment? <3 It's really important to me to know if you enjoy what I'm doing here!


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the end I decided to make it 4 parts as I'm still sloowly writing the rest of supposedly-third chapter and it might take me a week to finish. I though you might appreciate something to read in between, it's been long since the last update :)

**1988**

_Tony does get his PhD in a year and two months. Howard shows up on the ceremony and their photographs together are all over the news in TV and papers and magazines. Everywhere. They say Tony is incredible, mesmerizing, bringing genius to a new level, adorable. He's an adult now and he resents those_ cute _remarks, but smiles anyway._

_There is a question again, though, what to do now._

_All of Tony’s buddies from MIT are still studying or have just started working – they are in their twenties, so it’s only logical – and Rhodey after his training is not going back; he decided to commit himself to the Air Force completely, pursuing a military career._

_Tony is basically left alone._

_At this point, most adults around him urge him to start working for Stark Industries, as a continuation of his glorious academic career so far, but Tony says no. It’s childish, but he can’t be bothered to care._

_There's one thing only that he is really_ attached _to and that he would like to continue._

_That is, before he meets this girl._

_Her name is Lynn, she’s an inch higher than Tony, skinny with perfect legs and dark eyes, and she’s a heroin addict. Tony sees her the first time when he is leaving one of the parties, a few weeks before he gets his degree and then again, but it’s always a flicker. She seems mysterious, as if she was cut out of a book, unfitting and maladjusted and it’s making Tony obsessed._

_When they are finally introduced to each other, Tony takes her to his apartment the same night and they stay in for two days, kissing and fucking and getting high without a break and it’s perfect. Tony gets to know that she’s a writer and has some boring job to get money for her_ habit _, like she calls it. He asks her what is her dream and she says it is to live in San Francisco._

_Tony tells Howard and Obie that he ‘needs some time for himself’ and he will start working for SI as soon as he has rested; they agree to it because it’s been a really crazy year – Tony knows perfectly that if not cocaine, he would have never been able to it – and they are proud enough of his accomplishments to let his off the leash for some time._

_Lynn comes to SF with Tony and they spend the best few months of their lives there – that is, until Tony learns that she’s been sleeping with her new agent. He isn’t a jealous type and he wouldn’t really mind sharing, but it’s her who leaves._

_Tony’s on a drug binge for a few long days and it’s the first time he knows he is losing himself._

_But he puts himself together, meets a new girl – they don’t last long, but it’s not what Tony is looking for, he just wants a distraction – and gets it under control. It’s a safe deception and it works for months._

 

 

**2014**

Malibu is good.

Tony is happy to be on his own, what rationally isn’t a good decision but he can’t be bothered to care. There is no nagging, no questions, no endless talks. Given the extreme speed of his speech and the ability to _never_ shut up, everyone considers him to be a _people’s person_ but truth to be told, he much prefers the silence (or deafening noise) around him. He’s always preferred machines to people. Machines don’t complain and don’t stare at him disapprovingly, don’t make the accusing sad eyes that make him go _mad._

Tony takes _her_ with himself and it’s a perfect relationship, a love-love relationship – not like being with any real woman, not even with Pepper. Everyone turns bitter at some point and leaves because Tony disappoints, he knows he does, it's a fact, but he can’t change himself. He doesn’t even want to – and no one wants a machine to be chosen before them and that’s what Tony always does at some point.

As soon as he arrives to the West Coast, he drives to LA to pull some strings and make a few good contacts, invaluable in such situation. He comes back home with a bag of _very_ good coke – he can pay for the best, thank you – and a nice girl. She’s not a junkie, or not yet, at least. Tony doesn’t take the drugs in her presence, he is more responsible than that.

It’s funny: he is doing exactly what some people told him before. Young people always say _just once_ and _I have it under control_ and the older say _no no and no_ and it’s like two monologues instead of a dialogue. Now Tony plays the wiser guy and the irony is making him laugh a lot.

The girls is sweet and nice and she stays with him for a good few nights before going back to her hometown in Oklahoma. Tony gives her a diamond necklace for goodbye because he can and she deserves it.

When she is gone, he works.

Tony and cocaine are great collaborators, they have always been, and it’s amazing because Tony makes an impression of a person in control.

During the next months, he makes a point of going out: to balls, galas, to bars and clubs, to meetings. He smiles and laughs and chit-chats with everyone around and it’s just like before; before Avengers and Iron Man and before Afghanistan. He doesn’t call anyone and JARVIS blocks _their_ calls; he doesn’t work on any S.H.I.E.L.D. projects, leaving it all to the agency itself. Fury gives up trying to reach him after three days, probably just deciding that Tony is not worth the effort.

Tony wants so fucking much to know _how_ all the mess with taking over the world and cyber-attacks could take place, but there are no available answers other than this one: everyone who was supposed to take care of the safety of the country – or of the world – fucked up.  S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t put it together as they are missing a few vital elements; Tony could maybe, maybe provide them with some but he is not going to, he’s not going to talk about Toma to _anyone_ at _any_ time. He stays in the shop, working and arguing with JARVIS and getting beauty sleep ‘cause he can’t afford to look less than perfect.

He's screaming at the world: see, I am okay, I am perfect here, I am living my life, I am managing, I am happy with how things are. The world believes; Tony Stark is back on magazine covers, radiant and successful like he used to be. Playboy, billionaire, philanthropist flaunted more than before.

Tony is pretty sure the Avengers _don’t_ believe, but he doesn’t want to ask. It is all sending a message no one but the team can pick up: _I don’t need you. I am taking care of my own affairs. I am taking care of myself_. _Leave me the fuck alone._ He needs time. He doesn’t need them to function, to be happy. He doesn’t need to be clean to function. He can do everything by himself.

Only that he still _sleeps with her_ more and more and it’s terrifying. The comedowns are almost painful and increasingly discomforting, making him either jittery and restless hyper-excited self or fucking depressed and unable to drag himself out of the bed. There are no meds for that in the house and he can’t get any without talking to someone and tricking them into prescribing him something, or finding if some of his new _friends_ can have something for him. Tony doesn’t even try as he knows it won’t work on him; he tried that before.

So he makes love to _her_ more and more often and it’s slowly, inevitably becoming dangerous.

***

Two months in Malibu and no Avengers at his doorstep – apparently they decided that if he is alive and on the news every few days, he can be left to himself – and Tony knows it’s going to hurt.

Month three, there is a huge mess involving world security that Tony doesn’t know a lot about – only what the TV shows and that is mostly lies or exaggerations – involving some of Toma’s protégées. Well, that is Tony’s assumption; they use some tech that Toma has described to Tony at some point. He feels… remotely guilty for not helping WSC or S.H.I.E.L.D. with preventing the whole situation; no one dies this time – no one is even hurt – but there is a lot of damage; all of it seems to reassure the _bad guys_ that they are much less monitored than they thought.

Tony hates the guilt settling down in his abdomen, making him feel nauseous and making him want to help. They probably deserve help but – he doesn’t deserve taking part in the victory.

***

One evening, three months and a half in, when he is half-working, half-dozing off in a _pleasant_ state, he gets a phone call and JARVIS connects it what means that isn’t anyone from the East coast that he doesn’t want to hear from.

Turns out to be one of his LA contacts telling him that the girl he’s been seeing for the last few weeks – it _was_ nothing but sex, but she really was a good person underneath all her crudity – shot herself. They don’t know why, the man says, and maybe he continues, but Tony doesn’t hear much more. It’s like being back to some of the worst memories.

He goes to the bathroom, makes himself sick, and then drinks until he falls unconscious. When he wakes up, it’s difficult to even distinguish which room he is in – given the combined killer’s headache and system depression that comes with the comedown – and he is sure it would be too painful to move, so he just stays on the floor, falling in and out of slumber, for most of the day. There is a thick woolen rug he’s lying on so it’s not too bad.

The first thing he gets up is drink three glasses of cold milk, the second is throw all the coke into the ocean straight from one of the mansion’s windows.

 _Maybe_ he could have saved her, or helped her; the loss, even though they weren’t close, feels more raw and painful than a thousand people killed by SI bombs. _Maybe, maybe, maybe._ Probably not, but _maybe._

If only.

And it’s all _her,_ Tony knows; they smoked coke with the girl more times than he can remember; she was having problems, she was paranoid and – that’s a generalization and maybe a lie, but at least it provides an answer.

It’s Tony's mistake, getting too close to people who can die easily and it's partially his fault every single time because he doesn't stop them.

It’s all _her_ and it’s all Toma and it’s been several months and Tony still freezes when he lets himself remember the first time Toma put the needle into his arm and he stared at it with morbid fascination and awareness of what is going to happen.

Tony knows it’s time to end it. Maybe he hasn’t found the right motivation yet – _the right motivation is in yourself, for your own sake and not for others’_ , at least that’s what has worked for him before – but he doesn’t. Have. Time.

He knows he can’t mentally take any more guilt, he'd just snap and do something he would regret – or he wouldn’t. Because he'd be dead.

It’s five days of self-imposed detox that he manages to go through and then he just _can’t._ He is hardly able to stand on his legs and he’s been throwing up most of he’s manages to swallow; there are chills and hallucinations and excruciating pain and it’s all textbook and it should pass, should lessen, but Tony can’t notice any change; he can’t stay awake but he can’t sleep either and – he doesn’t even have strength to try. _N_ _othing_ is worth this agony.

Or a few things are but he's a coward. Tony would just laugh into the faces of everyone who’s ever believed differently.

In the end JARVIS calls one of the LA contacts; Tony knows he would call the Avengers or Pepper or anyone of _those_ people but he’s been restricted by a special code that he can’t ignore. That’s the one thing convenient with A.I.’s, Tony muses, they will never betray you unless you let them.

The man who comes is called Pete, he’s a friend of Tony’s friend since no one else was _available_ on such a short notice and he _got a half a degree in psychiatric nursing_ before he started dealing drugs and dropped out, so it’s the best help Tony could have hoped for.

Pete is also an avid junkie and doesn’t protest at all when Tony asks him for a shot; he just gives Tony a serious look but doesn’t oppose. It doesn’t make everything go away instantly, but the symptoms lessen and a few minutes into it Tony gets up _without_ getting nauseous, manages to eat a cold portion of French fries that Pete brought – blissfully salty – and drags himself into the shower. Pete stays for the rest of the evening, making sure that Tony won’t be dying anytime soon, and gets rewarded for that with a generous roll of $100 bills.

Tony decides that he’s probably crossed the border of being disgusted with himself because suddenly, he feels almost okay and he _shouldn’t_. He shouldn’t, it should be fucking impossible; it’s – _inhuman_.

There is no deluding himself anymore.

 

 

**1989**

_In late December Tony is in New Orleans, crazy place perfect for celebrating the beginning of a new decade. Rhodey comes from the Middle East when he’s been taking part in one mission or another, Tony is not keeping tabs on that anymore. All he does these days is run away from Howard and Obie – and study. He's doing a second PhD only because he is_ bored _so, so often; well, maybe a bit because Physics is fascinating and it’s not only useful for whatever work he might be thinking about doing in the future, but just for the sake of the science behind. All the mysteries of the universe are explainable by Physics, Tony believes, even if it doesn’t explain_ people. _Nothing explains people and Tony gave up trying to teach himself to understand long ago._

_Rhodey has two and a half weeks off; he spends the first one with his family and the second – the last week of the month – with Tony in a luxury suite in a five star hotel. Howard might be angry with Tony’s procrastinating, but Tony is making enough money all on his own; everyone wants his consulting and help and he values his knowledge highly._

_The first evening, Rhodey just observes Tony, it feels like a tiger preparing to jump at his pray. Even though he makes sure Rhodey doesn’t see him actually taking drugs, Tony feels shivers crawling up his body all day long – because he knows what Rhodey will say and he knows that Rhodey will be right._

_‘You need to stop,’ Rhodey finally does state the next morning. ‘I’ve seen enough to know that you’re just lost yourself, man. Fuck, Tony, you look terrible and you know this. Make up might work for others, but underneath… You act completely not like yourself and you might fool others, but you won’t fool me. You’ve been taking drugs for what, three and a half years? Do you even still realize what you’re doing to yourself, to your body – you’re gonna kill yourself! I said that a few times already but I just can’t see it ending any other way.’_

_‘You’re exaggerating, Rhodey, cupcake,’ Tony laughs the words off, not letting them sink in. He takes the bourbon bottle and starts pouring them both generous servings over the ice cubes. ‘I am managing fine –’_

_‘You are not supposed to be_ managing _at all_ , _fuck!’ Rhodey exclaims, walking up to the bar and standing opposite Tony. ‘You are not a kid anymore. You are nineteen. You should know by now that you’re not supposed to live your life_ managing –’

‘ _I am enjoying myself –_ ’ _Tony starts, putting the bourbon bottle away._

_‘Just like your father is enjoying himself when he’s raging drunk around your house?’_

_‘It’s not_ my _house,’ Tony hisses. That is a fucking low, painful blow. ‘And I am_ nothing _like him. I have never hurt anyone –_ ’

‘ _Not physically_ ,’ _Rhodey interrupts. ‘And it’s not about hurting someone else, it’s about what you are doing to yourself!’_

_‘I don’t –’_

_‘You are hopeless,’ Rhodey cuts in again, shaking his head. It hurts to hear the disappointment in his voice, to see the resignation in his posture. But Tony has known for a long time that all he ever does is hurt the people he’s close to. ‘Gimmie the coke,’ Rhodey hisses into his ear, suddenly next to Tony and grabbing his shoulders. He is taller, muscular, sveral pounds heavier that Tony himself._

_‘What the_ fuck _–’ Tony starts, trying to wriggle himself out of the man’s grasp, but it’s impossible._

_‘I am not joking here. Give me all the coke you have here, at least,’ Rhodey states, starting straight into Tony’s eyes. It feels like no one has done that in ages._

_Eventually he does obey and Rhodey throws all the stuff away_ , again. _Then he keeps Tony closed in the apartment for the remaining ten days of his stay, holding Tony’s head when he throws up, giving him painkillers, cajoling into eating when he’s achy and nauseous, keeping him occupied and making him sleep._

_By day five it’s all much better, by day seven Tony is almost all right, but Rhodey makes them both stay in and watch the fireworks out of the windows of the tall building instead of joining the celebration outside. They eat ordered Creole food because it’s Louisiana, drink some beer and watch crappy movies that make them laugh hysterically._

_Tony feels_ healthier _and happy; the time with Rhodey is all he’s been missing. They discuss science and girls and cars and share crazy MIT memories, eat cold pizza and talk some more, play video games and talk even more._

 _Then it’s January already and the few days Rhodey has left in States they spend outside. Tony does surprisingly well without_ her. _Rhodey trusts him not to give into the temptation and Tony manages and it makes him fucking ecstatic._

_New Year’s resolution: stay clean. Just stay the fuck clean._

_It takes Tony a full month to fail._

 

**2014**

The last day he spends in Malibu, Tony dresses himself in his best suit, puts on a perfect make-up like he’s learned a long time ago, makes his hair fancy, takes his wallet filled with money, and goes to another Charity Ball JARVIS has told him he’s been being invited to for years but he’s always dismissed the invitations.

Tony plays along, smiling, chit-chatting, charming everyone around, the whole deal.

He _hates_ it. Those hypocritical people, and he’s been one of them for so long, maybe still is – make him want to bomb the whole building and bury them under the fallen stone. The whole thing is a fake pointless deception, hiding people as disgusting as himself behind suits and tuxedos, behind skirts and perfectly-made hairstyles and cocktail dresses – so after a few hours he just runs away. Of course it’s graceful; there aren’t any goodbyes, actually, but he dissolves into the crowd and makes his way to the exit unnoticed, and as soon as he's safely far from the building, he hides into a dark alley and, invites _her_ to his system and doesn’t let her go for days.

If he is inhuman anyway, and a messed-up ball of guilt, self-hatred and hypocrisy, there's no fucking reason to pretend.

And he’s been cleaning up so well, but it’s been a deception and now he finally lets himself acknowledge that _it’s been a fucking deception_. After what he’s done when he was young, after the bad decisions he’s consciously made, it’s nothing that he doesn’t deserve.

It must look ridiculous: a man in a suit worth thousands of dollars, sitting on a dirty pavement in a dark alley and drinking cheap booze after he’s got stoned. He should be a hero, an example for the world – an example for young people, teaching them what to do and not what _not_ to do and how _not_ to ruin your life.

Only that both Stark Industries and the Avengers, not to mention S.H.I.E.L.D., can apparently function perfectly well without him, so it’s not like his life is such a big concern.

Tony knows his teammates have been trying to contact him many times over those few months and it’s been _him_ to refuse the contact. He lets JARVIS know he's okay because JARVIS always worries. He has different friends now and when he gets to one of the apartments, he’s so high it’s difficult to stay even remotely rational; nevertheless they welcome him with open arms.

It doesn’t take long before he’s out of the money, he’s good at spending dollars on a good quality coke. He spends time mastering repressing everything other than what is happening in the exact moment: forgetting the past and forgetting _about_ the future just like with Toma; he’s had _a lot of_ practice with Toma.

***

A few days later, he wakes up and doesn’t seem to know anything but that he is _cold._ Face feels funny but that’s predictable, since he hasn’t been shaving for several days, and he’s still wearing the same clothes he vaguely remembers putting on; there is no sign of his wallet though. Or anything else. All he has is the clothes and some tissues and a caramel candy in his pocket.

He puts the candy into in mouth and sucks on it as if was supposed to save his life, then tries to sit up; as soon as he moves more of his body than one arm, most of his muscles and bones on fire. _Screaming_. Nothing seems to hurt _more_ , so – he’s just beaten up. Nothing  broken.

Breathing is tough, _bruised ribs_ , but it’s always tough during a comedown anyway.

He stops moving and wonders if maybe the pavement isn’t such a bad place to be –

–  it probably is, he decides, the next time he wakes up somewhere unfamiliar and not even missing his home, it seriously messes up with his head. He knows he needs help.

The third time he wakes up, there is someone hovering over him, someone with big black eyes and black hair. The face is almost uncomfortably close to Tony’s own, but it backs away as soon as Tony blinks a few times.

‘Who _the fuck_ are you and what do you want from me?’ Tony spits, but it’s a rather pathetic whimper and not a strong and authoritative voice he’s wanted, not even close.

‘I am Rave and I just found you here unconscious and wanted to make sure you won’t die so that I wouldn’t think you died because of me for the rest of my life,’ the man answers quickly, his words calm but sure. He's still crouching next to Tony and doesn’t seem to plan to move at all. ‘I am glad you are still alive.’

‘I am not sure I am,’ Tony hisses, pressing a hand to his temple; the headache makes every single word sound like 130 decibels and even though he isn’t some whiny kid, it _hurts_ , it fucking hurts.

‘Don’t say that,’ the man replies and it sounds like a plead more than an order.

There are a few moments of silence when Tony is trying to collect his thoughts, what’s majorly interrupted by the pulsating waves of pain in his head and the general slowness of this thoughts, as if he hasn’t woken up completely yet. He's expecting the man to go away after a moment, but _Rave_ stays for a minute and three and ten; he just sits cross-legged on the pavement, getting his jeans dirty and slightly wet, and seems to be – comfortable.

Tony finally sits up and leans against the wall, trying to asset his physical state: he’s quite sure that nothing is broken, he’s just covered with bruises and scrapes, but that’s something he’s used to. He will forget that they’ve ever been there in a few days.

He just doesn’t know what do now. He has no idea where he is – well, it’s probably somewhere in LA but since a lot of his memories from the last weeks seem missing, it could be almost anywhere. He has no money and no documents and no _coke_. Trying to go back to Malibu or to his _buddies_ , at least, sounds like a logical plan impossible to execute if he can’t even get up.

There are some vague memories of someone shouting _run_ and _go away_ and trying to tell everyone that the police are tailing them – apparently someone did some fucking dumb thing – so he's not sure what could happen if he did go back to his _buddies_. And Tony is _sure_ that if he went back home, he would just take the money and make the story repeat itself because he doesn’t even have shame to scold himself for thinking that.

It’s all because of a dead man and Tony feels like he’s going mad because he can’t even have revenge. Or justice. Even if , ultimately, it was himself who ruined his life, not someone else.

‘What is your name?’ the man asks politely, looking at Tony with those damn infuriatingly calm eyes.

‘You know what my name is,’ he snaps. It hurts to talk louder than whisper.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes, you _do_ ,’ Tony argues; whatever he might look like, anyone with half brains could put two and two together.

‘No, I’d be glad if you told me –’

‘I’m not playing your fucking psychological game,’ Tony growls, balling his hands so tightly that his too-long nails almost cut into his skin.

‘Okay,’ the man agrees and it’s almost too easy.

Them, there is half an hour in complete silence, the light of the streetlamps fading away as dawn makes the sky go brighter, blue and yellow, pale beautiful glow over the city.

‘I guess there is a story here,’ _Rave_ finally says. His voice is beautifully flat and delicate.

‘There is, but it’s not very interesting,’ Tony finds himself replying before he can register the words that flow out of his mouth. At least it’s true – but not the complete truth. _She_ makes him let his guard down too much. ‘… where are we?’ he finally adds quietly. The man doesn’t look at him with surprise or anything like that, just offers a small smile.

‘We are in San Francisco,’ he offers. Tony blinks several times.

That is… a bit far from what he’s expected. But asking anyone how did he get there or what’s been going on won’t bring any answers at all.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ the man asks. Tony nods reluctantly; yes, he is actually ravenous, he realizes, like always after a crash. He’s not sure he has eaten anything in days; it’s difficult to quantify the hunger.

The man takes a packet of butter biscuits out of his pocket and hands them to Tony. Tony tries to open the package and fails; the man takes it from his hands, opens it and gives them back to Tony.

‘Thanks,’ Tony murmurs, gaining a one more smile.

‘You’re welcome,’ the man replies and his voice is so genuine. It’s hard to believe that there is someone as nice – besides Captain America _maybe_ – in the world. But apparently Tony has the magnetic ability of making the _good_ people suddenly appear around him and acting as if he wasn’t the opposite of everything they are.

After Tony has eaten, he folds the wrapper into a tiny hat and offers it to the man who takes it as if it was something sacred.

It’s another few _long_ moments before the man speaks up again.

‘You have somewhere to go?’ he asks and Tony gapes.

‘Why?’ he questions in reply and fixes his gaze on the man’s unchanged face. He still doesn’t get why the man would waste so much time, sitting on a cold pavement with some stranger. A fucked-up stranger, that is.

‘If I leave you here, what will you do?’

 _Steal some money and get myself one last shot? Find a gun and blow my brain out? Borrow someone’s phone and call Pepper and_ plead _? Borrow a phone and call JARVIS and make him fix everything because he can do it better than his pathetic human creator?_

‘I don’t know,’ Tony replies honestly. ‘I have no fucking idea… I don’t even know why and _how_ I am here,’ he adds, his mouth again ahead of his brain. _Wonderful_. Because everyone wants to be burdened with his random pathetic self that couldn’t even _be stable_ and live a normal life even though he had – has? – everything.

‘You’re running away from something,’ the man states. ‘That’s okay. We all do… Okay, let me rephrase my previous question. Do you _know_ what is your name?’

‘… yes,’ Tony admits. Of course he does, everyone does, right?

‘Do you know _where_ you came from?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you _want_ to go back?’ the man asks, staring at Tony with his piercing gaze Tony can _feel_.

‘… no,’ he murmurs, shaking his head delicately; it still hurts like hell. ‘No,’ he adds more forcefully and looks up.

‘Okay,’ the man replies and nods to himself. ‘Okay… Can you get up?’

‘Can I _what_? –’

‘You come with me,’ the man says, standing up and stretching his arms. ‘Okay? No questions. I won’t ask any questions.’

‘Not even one?’ Tony asks, still staring up at the standing figure towering over him. It’s almost completely bright now and the city is going to wake up to its usual fervor soon. It doesn’t matter much; it’s not lot like by day anyone would care about one more addict wandering the streets; there have been enough of those since the 60s.

‘Just one,’ the man admits, smirking slightly.

‘Which one?’

‘What would you want me to call you?’

Tony inhales and holds his breath for a long moment, wondering what is the right answer, wondering if there is the right answer.

‘…you can call me Evan,’ he replies finally. The man – Rave – smiles at that and holds out his hand, then helps Tony up slowly and wraps an arm around his waist; it turns out that he has a car parked about half a mile away from the place.

Tony is fully aware of how he looks: like a homeless person he currently is. It feels right yo call himself that even though he has over a dozen houses. But no home.

The clothes are dirty and the fact that it’s a suit makes Tony even more ridiculous; he hasn’t shaved in a few weeks so his facial hair is a mess, his hair dirty; he’s _smells_ of filth and booze and he can barely walk – not enough food, not enough food _again_ – but Rave doesn’t seem to mind. He meets people’s stares and smiles at them, never letting go of Tony even a bit as if there was nothing to be ashamed of.

‘I’ve got a house out of the city,’ Rave finally informs Tony when they reach the car. It’s an old green Mercedes.

‘… thank you,’ Tony murmurs when they are both in the car and Rave is starting the engine; he soon falls asleep to the soft noise of the car.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I didn't uhm, make it unrealistic here. Let me know what you think :)  
> Thanks for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> (+ sorry for the shameless request, but I'd love you forever if you gave a look at this [If die, only in Manhattan](http://archiveofourown.org/series/41492) <3<3


	4. IV

**1989**

_In August Tony lands in hospital after he’s almost given himself alcohol poisoning._

_‘I don’t know if I should me mad at you or happy that it wasn’t the drugs,’ Rhodey comments as soon as he enters the room. Tony is feeling absolutely miserable, but that doesn’t stop him from smiling widely when he sees his friend._

_He hopes they are still friends. They haven’t been exactly talking since Rhodey found out Tony was using again, sometime in April. They argued. It hurt. It hurt them both, a lot, and Rhodey said he needed space because Tony was being too much of himself._

_Tony didn’t get what Rhodey meant back then, but he does now. He’s been pretty much obsessed with a few things, with his work and girls and with his work again, and it was all blow out of proportion and simply insane. He sees that now. He isn’t sure what that means, but he sees it._

_‘You’re only nineteen, Tony,’ Rhodey says quietly, sitting on the hospital bed next to Tony’s stretched legs. ‘Only nineteen. When we met, I was twenty. Why a are you doing this? What are you trying to achieve? Who are you trying to impress?’_

_Howard, Tony thinks. Obie. The whole world._

_‘Dunno,’ he replies._

_‘Bullshit,’ Rhodey says quickly and stares._

_‘Bullshit,’ Tony agrees after a few long moments and lets his head fall onto the pillow, closing his eyes. He feels Rhodey’s warm hands wrapping around his wrists tightly but not forcefully._

_‘What are you running away from?’ Rhodey finally asks and Tony feels a painful know forming in his gut. Rhodey always sees through him and always figures Tony out. Sometimes Tony envies him this understanding people thing._

_‘Myself,’ Tony replies almost inaudibly. ‘My name,’ he adds, because that makes more sense. If he can talk about sense of his pointless thoughts._

_Rhodey sighs, shifts for a few moments, Tony hears two soft thuds, and then Rhodey is lying next to him on the bed, tickling Tony’s leg with his warm foot dressed in soft cotton sock._

_‘Does anyone else know you’re here?’_

_‘Cassandra. She’s my girl now.’_

_‘Sure she is,’ Rhodey sighs and wraps his arm around Tony, careful not to disturb the IV line going into the cannula in Tony’s arm. ‘Then I’m not going anywhere and I’m no listening to your protests.’_

_‘You shouldn’t stay with me,’ Tony does protest, but Rhodey lifts up his head and glares._

_‘Damn right I shouldn’t,’ he replies. ‘But I will.’_

 

**2014**

‘So maybe this was a mistake,’ Tony says when Rave pulls up in front of a small watermelon-red house, differencing only in color from endless lines of similar houses on both sides of the streets. Suburbs.

‘Hmm?’

‘Just tell me where we are exactly and I think I’ll go,’ Tony explains, shifting uncomfortably, but doesn’t open the car’s door. Rave blinks a few times and then sighs.

‘You said you were okay with coming and that you didn’t want to go back to where you came here from.. Changed you mind already?’

‘I don’t want to impose,’ Tony explains, looking away. Because whichever way he decides to take this time: try a withdrawal _again_ or just go with the flow and take drugs and be happy, it won’t be pretty and he really shouldn’t force random people to be involved.

‘You can stay as long as you need.’

‘What the fuck are you, a good Samaritan or something?’ Tony asks before he can filter his words, at least. Rave offers him a wide smile instead of being offended.

‘You could say so,’ Rave laughs lightly. ‘But you are free to do whatever you want.’

‘But we are complete strangers –’

‘That we are,’ Rave agrees, but makes it sound as if it didn’t mean anything.

‘I don’t understand you,’ Tony states with a frown because no, in his world people do not do nice things to other people scooped from a street. It might happen in books or movies or maybe in someone else’s life stories, but not in Tony’s.

‘Maybe you will,’ Rave laughs softly. ‘I hope you will.’

There is a moment of silence before Rave speaks up again.

‘So, will you come in?’

‘… okay,’ Tony agrees and gets out of the car.

The house is small and neat and it feels homey as soon as Tony takes a step inside. It fits his vision of the person Rave is perfectly. Everything about the man just feels like it makes sense, like it’s exactly the way it should be and like he’s the most internally integrated man Tony has ever seen.

‘Just stay for the night, if you want to go away soon. I’ll cook. We can talk or watch a movie or do anything you want,’ Rave says, taking off his jacket and walks up to the sink to wash his hands.

‘I –’ Tony starts, but before he gives Rave an answer, he takes a moment to listen to what he’s body is telling him; the headache is finally gone after a short nap he took in the car and he can focus on something for once. It’s difficult to say precisely, but he’d guess he didn’t have any drugs in his system for at least three-four days, that means he’s been half-conscious through the worst part of comedown and withdrawal and – that’s remotely reassuring.

Even if he wishes he could just fucking remember what happened.

‘I could eat,’ he says finally, offering Rave a small smile. ‘I can help, too, just…’ he trails off, glancing at his dirty clothes.

‘Bathroom’s upstairs,’ Rave replies easily. ‘I’ll leave some clothes for you by the door, and I’ll be here in the kitchen. Good?’

‘Yeah, thanks, Samaritan,’ Tony says and then disappears into the hall and makes his way upstairs. There is a bath and a shower and Tony quickly sheds his clothes and steps into the bath without hesitation; shower might remind him of safety, but it’s not the kind of safety he’s looking for now. And it brings back memories.

He washes himself quickly and then, wrapped with a fluffy towel, snatches the clothes Rave left for him and puts them on, they’re one or two sizes to big – he’s skinny, coke and food don’t mix well – but they fit, just a little bit loosely.

‘Smell lovely,’ he says as he gets down. Rave is stir-frying some vegetables in a wok; there is a pot with rice on the stove.

‘Glad you like it. Allergies? I should have asked earlier –’

‘Not at all,’ Tony replies and takes a moment to look around the kitchen before guessing in which cupboard plates, glasses and crockery are kept. He guesses right. It’s predictable.

‘Are you okay? You look tired.’

‘I am. Just a bit,’ Tony replies truthfully. He can do that much, Rave invited him into his home, so it only seems fitting to repay him with honesty. It’s a refreshing feeling. Tony’s been living lies, or rather one big lie like an undercurrent of everything he’s been doing for a few months.

It _is_ exhausting.

When the food is done, they set the dishes on the table and Rave says a prayer. Tony hangs his head down and waits in silence until the man is done.

‘I’ll be going tomorrow morning,’ Tony declares when they sit down.

‘You going back home?’

Tony snorts. Home. Sure.

But then, he doesn’t know. He might just stay in a hotel in San Francisco, somehow that feels like a better idea than going back to Malibu or New York. That’s what he’s done to his life: he doesn’t even want to lay his eyes on his home. Even if he misses his bots and JARVIS like breathing.

‘Isn’t there anyone who could come to get you? So that you wouldn’t be alone?’ Rave asks when they are almost done with the food and Tony realizes he didn’t answer the previous question.

‘Sorry,’ he murmurs, putting his cutlery away. ‘I’m – I’m just unsure. I don’t know,’ he takes a few deep breaths. ‘Not really, no. Not at the moment.’

Rave stares at him blankly, Tony can’t guess at all what the man is thinking, but it doesn’t bother him. He feels safe and it’s so strange. He doesn’t understand himself anymore. And he is over forty, he should have figured it out a long time ago.

It’s Toma’s fault, it’s circumstances’ fault, but most of all, it’s his fault.

‘I’m just feeling really bad about letting you go,’ Rave says and then makes a face. ‘That sounds silly, but you know what I mean.’

‘Do I?’ Tony questions, looking away. He knows the answer, yet he selfishly wants to hear the words aloud, so that they will feel real and not like his imagination.

‘Has no one ever taken care of you?’ Rave shakes his head, Tony sees that out of the corner of his eye, and pushes his plate away. ‘I found you passed out in a street and I feel like if I let you go, it’ll end the same way. You don’t deserve that. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

‘Do you really care?’ Tony asks, curiously, looking up.

He knows he’s being ridiculous and childish, but that’s all he knows how to be now. It doesn’t hurt anymore.

‘I do,’ Rave says firmly. ‘Otherwise I’d have just left you there. I might not know why you were there and what happened, but I don’t care. I don’t want to leave you alone.’

‘… there is someone,’ Tony says after a moment. Of course there is and there has been all the time, but Tony didn’t even think about that because it’s too selfish and humiliating and too terrible. ‘But he’s, uhm, not around.’

‘That means?’

‘He’s military. Kind of top secret stuff. He’s in Middle East and there’s a mission, he’s almost unreachable, there’s a lot of confidentiality around that…’ Tony stops there, trying not to think about Rhodey. None of the Avengers – not even Pepper – could contact Rhodey is regard to the situation with Tony. They’re not exactly friends with the colonel. It’s always been Tony and Rhodey only, their friendship operating on a different level of _everything_.

Rhodey is due home in three months.

‘That’s tough,’ Rave comments, running a hand through his hair and messing it a bit. 

‘Everyone else kind of made me leave home because they didn’t understand that I needed time, and that – that some decisions, I just have to make by myself and that’s it. The decision is the most difficult and the most important part of the whole process. Been there.’

‘So where do you go from here? Now?’ Rave asks and Tony wants to laugh because the man can honestly ask about the exact things Tony can’t figure out.

‘I can’t go any lower,’ he comments, looking at his hands. ‘You know, that passing out in a fucking street. I don’t know, it’s just, it’s never been –’

‘It got out of hand?’

‘You could say that,’ Tony chuckles darkly. ‘Someone died, and then it just went –’ he trails off and waves his hand pointlessly.

‘You should call your friend,’ Rave says quietly, with a worried frown on his forehead. ‘Contact him, somehow. Is this an emergency? Do you feel suicidal?’

‘Suicidal? No, no,’ Tony replies quickly and doesn’t let himself dwell on that too much.

‘It’s easier sometimes to let yourself hit your lowest place because then there’s no other way but for things to get better,’ Rave says, fixing his soft stare on Tony. ‘But it’s easier to embrace hopelessness and tell yourself that there’s no way out. There always is. And there are things that you can’t do alone, even if you have to make the decision and it’s the toughest part.’

‘Are you asking me if I’m ready for that?’

‘Am I?’ Rave answers with a question and Tony cracks a small smile.

‘I don’t want to fail again,’ Tony mumbles finally. He doesn’t exactly want to look up and see Rave’s disappointed face.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Rave replies and Tony can’t help but to stare at him, wondering what brought this on so suddenly. The man’s voice is serious and almost cheerful at the same time. ‘You can do _everything_.’

‘Can I?’

‘Has no one told you that before? You can,’ Rave says and he sounds completely convinced.

Tony is sure Rave knows his real name and that he’s perfectly aware of all Tony’s affairs, just like the rest of the world, but he still says the words that aren’t exactly what something he hears every day.

‘Then I will,’ he says and smiles. Rave smiles back.

His own words feel genuine, even if a little bit rushed, and for the first time in months he knows it’s the truth and he believes himself.

***

The next morning Tony doesn’t go away. Instead, he eats breakfast with Rave and goes back to sleep because he’s exhausted. He spent half of the night staring at the ceiling, afraid to go to sleep, unable to let himself fall into the dreamland.

He didn’t dream. A blessing, for once.

The next time he wakes up it’s noon and he hears a sewing machine running downstairs, but before going down he takes a long bath and tries to organize his thoughts somehow. It’s tough, thought, his head is a mess and his body is sluggish because it’s that phase of withdrawal already, when he’s slowly starting to itch for another dose of the drug, simultaneously falling into tired lethargic state in which everything seems impossible and exhausting and he wants to laugh at his declaration of yesterday, but he’s not going to.

He can’t keep going like that forever, in cycles. He’s been there. Either he stops now or he doesn’t for a long, long time.

It’s good to have someone watching over him, even if he feels guilt laying heavy in gut because he’s basically using his good Samaritan. But Rave hinted that he doesn’t trust Tony with himself and Tony knows he’s perfectly right.

When he does finally go downstairs, he stand in the doorway and stares at Rave working for a few moments before the man notices him. There are a few unfinished pieces of clothing laying around and there is a shelf in the back of the room filled with rolls of fabrics of different kinds and colors.

Tony realized he didn’t even ask what Nate does for a living, or anything at all. Now he has at least one answer.

‘Did you figure anything out?’ Rave asks when he takes his foot off the pedal and the room is silent all of sudden.

‘Uhm,’ Tony grunts and shrugs.

‘No rush.’

‘You keep saying that –’

‘Because I mean it,’ Rave cuts in, turning the dress he was sewing inside out in few skilled movements. It’s burgundy, knee length and elegant and it look really good. Pepper would love it. ‘Call your friend. Tell him to come to you.’

‘I can’t just interfere with his life like that,’ Tony replies, rolling his eyes, because _hello_. He might have fucked up, but he doesn’t have to add being a problem for Rhodey to the list of his faults.

‘Would you come always across the world if he needed you?’

‘Don’t try the backwards psychology on me,’ Tony says, crossing his arms and wrapping his fingers around his arms so tightly that it’s probably bruise, but he can’t make himself stop. ‘And it’s different. I do what I want. He has superiors he need to listen to.’

‘There are more important things than work and your own life, even if it’s all a matter of national security or whatever. You should know that. Everyone should know that.’

‘You’re a pain in the ass, you know it?’ Tony asks, staring at Rave who smiles.

‘So I’ve been told. But I’m also right.’

‘Okay,’ Tony agrees and watches Rave work for a few minutes before going back upstairs, to a guest room he’s been occupying. He thinks and think and thinks, trying to keep his thoughts on safe tracks, but he’s failing miserably. Things just seem _impossible_.

***

When Rave enters the room maybe two hours later, he’s holding his cell phone with a very baffled look on his face, but he freezes as soon as he takes a step inside.

‘I knocked,’ he states into the space, the worried frown back on his forehead, as he notices Tony lying on the bed and crying. ‘Hang on,’

That’s what withdrawal does to him: he’s an emotional mess. For a few weeks. It’s like his body just can’t keep it together and he breaks into million pieces, and he’s never let anyone see him like that but two people. And one of them is dead.

‘I’m just –’ Tony starts, but Rave waves at him and shakes his head.

‘Do you need anything? Water? Can I do something?’

‘No, thanks,’ Tony replies, wiping the tears quickly.

‘There’s a call for you,’ Rave says, explaining the presence of the phone. ‘I have no idea how they got my phone number, but it’s for you. He says his name is Jarvis.’

Tony lets out a nervous chuckle, closing his eyes for a long moment. JARVIS. Of course it’s JARVIS.

‘Is he the friend from across the world?’

‘What? No,’ Tony answers and sits up. ‘I’m sorry for that –’

‘Don’t be. Talk to him,’ Rave replies, handing Tony the cell phone. Tony takes it with a little bit of reluctance and inhales and exhales deeply before speaking up. Rave is already gone.

‘Don’t do this, J. You’re freaking the man out. What did you use?’

‘Mister Rave Tyler is a public person, sir,’ JARVIS replies, sounding more offended than relieved, but it’s just a game. He knows what Tony likes and what he hates and always acts accordingly. And Tony hates pity. ‘There was footage from a security camera, with you and him in a car. I checked the plate numbers and found the telephone number.’

‘You’re a god, J,’ Tony breathes and laughs lightly. It’s a bit hysterical, but he doesn’t care.

‘I was worried, sir.’

‘Did you –’

‘I did not inform anyone about the situation,’ JARVIS assures Tony. ‘You would leave for longer periods of time without telling me before, so I had no reason to, not until twenty-six hours ago I sent a text message to your phone and you didn’t reply.’

Tony nods to himself; he always replies to JARVIS’ texts immediately or as soon as possible. And after an hour or two without a response, the A.I. would figure something is wrong.

‘Are you well, sir?’ JARVIS asks, more softly this time. Tony considers.

‘I’m a fucking mess, J. I’m sitting in a complete stranger’s house, wearing his clothes and crying in his fucking bed and I can’t even make myself get up and pull myself together because you know the symptoms. _Emotional liability_ , I think they call it professionally.’

The words are easier to say that Tony thought they would, but it’s JARVIS. JARVIS is a special case and he’s always been. Tony still hates himself for worrying the A.I. though.

‘Are you _well_ , sir?’ JARVIS asks again, stressing the word, and Tony wants to smack himself for not answering the real question.

‘I haven’t had anything for – four days. Five days. Something like that, I don’t remember, it’s a long story, I –’

‘Don’t worry, sir. There is no rush.’

‘… I want it to end,’ Tony finds himself whispering into the phone and it hurts everywhere when he says that. ‘J.’

‘I’m contacting Colonel Rhodes in a moment –’

‘Don’t,’ Tony tries to protest, but he knows JARVIS too well.

‘I am, sir. Unless you want to tell someone else to come for you and wait for them to understand. Which you won’t do. And you don’t have to tell Colonel Rhodes anything.’

‘There is so much I’ve got to tell him,’ Tony whispers again, feeling really exhausted all of sudden. The sole thought of telling Rhodey everything, of hurting his friend like that so much, it’s just overwhelming.

‘I’m contacting him, sir,’ JARVIS says without any trace of question in the statement. ‘Will you be coming home now?’

‘No.’ Again, Tony finds himself saying this before he can really think.

But no, he’s not. If he did, he’s just – he’d just do the same. He’s not strong enough.

‘I will send a courier with a phone for you to Mister Taylor’s home address then. Expect it in the evening, sir. It will be much more convenient to have you close by.’

‘Missed you too, J, baby,’ Tony says before he ends the call. Knowing JARVIS, the phone will be here as soon as possible. It would be even quicker, but the A.I. knows better than to try to land a jet in Rave’s backyard, which he totally could do.

Tony takes a moment to clean himself up, feeling a bit better after hearing JARVIS’ voice, and goes downstairs to give the phone back to its owner.

‘So you have another friend,’ Rave says as soon as he hears Tony’s footsteps. He’s in the sewing room again, this time looking though a giant box filled with endless kinds of buttons. It’s kind of fascinating, even if Tony is not really a fashion guy; he lets his tailors do everything for him.

‘Kind of.’

‘Why can’t he come? He’s certainly resourceful, finding you at my place like that.’

‘If by resourceful you mean creepy, then yes,’ Tony offers and sits down on one of the spare chairs. ‘I owe you honesty and I want to tell you, but I need you to keep this secret,’ he adds after a longer moment, subconsciously knowing that it’s okay to say that aloud, that Rave won’t do anything to endanger J.

‘You’ve got my word.’

‘JARVIS is not a friend. He’s my kid,’ Ton says and Rave turns around sharply. ‘No, no, not like that – he’s an A.I. I wrote, therefore my baby. He’s a sweetheart. And he can run a facial recognition sequence, a bit like in those crime movies? He was looking out when he realized I disappeared. And he can’t come because he doesn’t have a body.’

‘Sounds like a friend to me,’ Rave states, and goes back to his search.

Tony stares.

‘Well, I’m not that surprised by the whole A.I. idea,’ Rave admits easily. ‘And what about your other friend?’

‘JARVIS will message him.’

‘I’m glad,’ Rave smiles this time and Tony feels lighter. It’s good to make someone smile instead of worry or get angry.

***

The delivery arrives around eight p.m. and as soon as Tony opens the box, he calls JARVIS and sets up a teleconference, so that JARVIS can see for himself that Tony is okay. As okay as it gets, given the situation.

‘Colonel Rhodes will come to get you in approximately twenty-two hours, sir,’ the A.I. states and Tony feels a smile creeping onto his face. He tries his best ignore the feeling of guilt he has about this.

‘Thanks, J,’ Tony murmurs, getting under the blanket. ‘Are the babies okay?’

‘They are,’ JARVIS assures Tony and the phone instantly shows Tony a view of the Malibu workshop from one of the A.I.’s cameras, the three bots are visible and working. JARVIS the big brother is perfect.

Tony puts the phone on the bedside cabinet, leaving the connection on, plugs the phone to electricity so that the battery doesn’t die, and falls asleep, murmuring things to JARVIS and staring at his baby bots dealing with their work in the empty ‘shop.

***

True to JARVIS words, Rhodey knocks on Rave’s door a few minutes to six the next afternoon, and then Tony opens the door – he’s been tracking Rhodey’s phone’s GPS signal to know exactly when the colonel would arrive – Rhodey is in front of him in one big step and wraps his arms around Tony, hugging him tightly.

‘Thank you for taking care of Tony, Mister Tyler,’ he says when he finally unwraps himself from around Tony, nodding at the younger man standing a few steps behind. ‘I’m sorry for all problems you might have had –’

‘There haven’t been any, colonel. Everything was fine. I’m happy I could help.’

‘So, Tony, you don’t have anything with you –’

‘No luggage, but, uhm, we though you could step in and eat dinner with us? I helped,’ Tony says, smiling at Rhodey weakly. Rhodey is looking at him with this  piercing anxious look.

‘Of course,’ he agrees and then they eat. Both Rave and Rhodey tell some stories while Tony sits there, listening and focusing on their voices because it’s easier to ignore the cravings and the anxiety.

It’s the drug, though. It’s not Tony. That’s one thought Tony is trying very hard to keep in his mind. Rhodey used to tell him that all the time and it kind of stuck, even if not consciously.

They talk and eat and Rhodey offers Rave a brief explanation of his job, which the younger man finds fascinating. It’s nice. Tony sometimes forgets that superheroes and spies and secret stuff is not everyone’s everyday life.

They don’t stay for the night, though. Tony promises to give Rave a call in a few days and then they get into Rhodey’s car and Rhodey them to Malibu because that’ what Tony wants. If he has Rhodey, than everywhere is good because Rhodey will not let him anywhere near drugs of any kind, not even painkillers. Not at the moment.

Tony falls asleep soon; his dreams are erratic and Rhodey wakes him up a few times, but in the end they do get to Malibu and Tony and Rhodey both climb into the big bed without taking their clothes off, and then they sleep.

 

**1990**

_Tony spends the whole year doing his third PhD, only because otherwise he’s be bullied into working for Stark Industries already: he is a big boy. He is twenty now and that’s supposed to mean something. It really doesn’t, he still can’t legally buy booze and everything else stays the same._

_There are ups and downs._

_Rhodey spends most of the year in various places all around the world, in Japan and Germany and Iraq and some islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean._

_He makes Tony call him twice a week at least and when Tony doesn’t, he calls so many times that Tony gets mad and disconnects the phone in his apartment in Boston._

_Rhodey knows Tony is still using cocaine and he knows that Tony tried to stop, but he can’t because his body is so used to the drug that when it’s deprived if it, it’s a terrible and painful experience and a real disaster and Tony can’t put himself together for weeks, and eventually he grows tired of fighting and just gives in to his lethargic body and the cravings._

_He tries to stop two times that year and he realized that Rhodey was right. He should have never started. He’s reaching his limits right now, not sleeping, eating little, his thoughts are too tangled for himself to understand them, too quick to be written down._

_There isn’t a girl. There are some whores he fucks but there isn’t a girl, or a boy or anyone._

_It’s just him and the drug and she’s the mistress and Tony hates it._

 

**2014**

When Tony wakes up, after sleeping longer than usually, but that’s expected given his body’s needs and waking up several times throughout the night, Rhodey is not there. Tony can smell something fried from the kitchen, so he crawls out of bed and makes his way straight to down the stairs and into the room.

‘Morning,’ Rhodey greets him and puts two plates on a table, filled with toast, sausages and cubed tomatoes.

‘Hey, honeybear,’ Tony replies wearily and sits down. It’s going to be a long day, he knows that already, and it makes him anxious and irritated, even though he knows everything that’s going to happen for the next few days or weeks is to help him.

‘Eat,’ Rhodey orders him and pours two glasses of juice.

‘I am,’ Tony replies, his mouth filled with toast. Rhodey nods with satisfaction and starts to eat, too. They stay silent for a few long minutes, but as soon as they’re done with the food, Rhodey gives Tony The Look.

It’s been several months since the last time, after the Chitauri attacked. It’s a worried and disappointed look that Tony hates as much as he deserves it, every single time.

‘I thought we had a deal, Tony,’ Rhodey says, but his words are softer than someone else might have expected. Rhodey knows Tony too well to be angry with him.

‘I know, but –’

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘I know that, too,’ Tony admits, looking at his knees, but Rhodey doesn’t let him. He stands up, takes Tony’s hand and leads him to the living room and makes him sit on the sofa and look straight at him.

‘You were supposed to give me a call if _anything_ happened. You know that I would have answered, no matter what. Not even my superiors would stop me from contacting you, Tony. You know you guys, the superheroes, are above the rules – it took me as much as a sentence including your name to have a jet ready in two hours.’

‘I haven’t been much of a superhero,’ Tony says quietly, but Rhodey still doesn’t let him look away. Tony really, really wants to just disappear right now, just curl up in a ball and disappear, because thinking about everything he’s done – and everything he hasn’t done – it’s like torture.

‘So I’ve heard. But I thought you just needed space.’

Tony actually laughs at that, the sound is high and dry and sad, but he doesn’t mind.

‘Only you would think that,’ he says when he’s calmed down a bit. Rhodey is staring at him with a strange look on his face. ‘I don’t think there is anyone else who’d be fine with me just casually stopping my superheoring. Well, in fact, I _know_ that they aren’t fine.’

‘But you did it anyway. And moved to Malibu.’

‘You’re the only one to get that, too –’

‘I would, I lived through you staying in Tokyo for four months after you left for a two-day conference because you claimed the hotel had the best air conditioning ever.’

‘– even Pepper though I was –’ Tony trails off, rubs his face and takes a deep breath.

‘That you were?...’

‘We had a row,’ Tony sighs, slightly frustrated, looking down at his hands in his lap.

‘About drugs.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They didn’t – how did you know it was _them_ , not her?’

‘You’ve lived with your bunch of heroes for a few months. Of course they’d be involved. They always seem to be involved in all kinds of stuff.’

‘They caught me pretty high one day. Freaked out. Wanted to have me taken to rehab and all that. But – I am a fucking grown man, Rhodey. I am. I know I don’t act like it sometimes and I know that you can’t trust an addict and that it’s not something you can rationalize anyhow, but I’ve been there, you know? You know. You know all too well. And you know I need to be ready to make a decision. It can’t be just… forced.’

‘God,’ I really do know that,’ Rhodey says, shaking his head, but doesn’t take his eyes off Tony.

‘So I went to Malibu. I was fine and then I wasn’t and it just… it ended at Rave’s.’

‘Tony,’ Rhodey states firmly. ‘Eyes on me. Good genius. Are you ready now? Are you ready to move on? Right now?’

‘I want to be,’ Tony laughs again, tilting his head back until it rests on the sofa’s back and he’s staring at the white ceiling. ‘God, how much I want to be… I think I am. As ready as I can imagine myself be.’

‘Good,’ Rhodey replies and shifts a bit next to Tony, sitting arm in arm with him. ‘I need you to tell me what happened. Exactly. Everything.’

‘I know,’ Tony whispers again, ignoring the sudden wave of nausea that fills his body when he thinks of Toma’s smile and happy eyes and how he stretched out his arm without protest, like a rag doll. And he talks, but he starts when he was back. He starts with what has happened when he was finally released out of the medical care at the tower and let back into the Avengers.

Rhodey listens carefully and doesn’t interrupt, even if he looks twice like he was going to say something, when Tony recounts him the row he had with everyone when they found out, and then when he mentions the girls that tied. He doesn’t let himself think her name. It’s terrible of him, but it’s easier.

‘Okay,’ Rhodey sighs deeply when Tony is finally done, having arrived to the point when he talked to JARVIS at Rave’s. Tony’s throat is dry and sore and he’s pretty much trembling, it’s anxiety and embarrassment and the withdrawal messing with his body combined. Rhodey doesn’t mind. He’s seen all that and worse, even if it was twenty years ago. ‘You need to tell me what the problem is. Was. Initially,’ Rhodey adds, moving a bit again and fixing a hard stare on Tony. It’s not judgmental, but it’s firm.

‘I couldn’t stop.’

‘Before that.’

‘I couldn’t work.’

‘Before that, too.’

‘I couldn’t focus. And I had things to do. Important stuff.’

‘Nothing is important enough to do _this_ to yourself, you moron, you complete and total moron. I’ll just resign from the army and become your babysitter, I swear. You’re impossible.’

‘But –’

‘You should have told someone.’

‘What?’

‘The thing that you’re not telling me and that they didn’t know about. From before you couldn’t focus. From before everything. The moment things got messed up?’

‘I –’ Tony starts, swallows, shakes his head and feels so fucking much like running, but Rhodey’s arm is still wrapped around his shoulders; Rhodey put it there some time ago and Tony didn’t really notice.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ Rhodey tightens the hug and gives Tony a long look. ‘I’m not leaving you. Whatever happened, I’m going to help you deal with it, but you have to let me in. I’m not going anywhere and you don’t have to be scared. You know that.’

‘Yeah,’ Tony says and closes his eyes.

‘You okay?’ Rhodey asks quietly. ‘JARVIS, have one of the bots bring us cold water and make us tea.’

‘Of course, colonel,’ the A.I. replies quickly and Rhodey takes his arm away, only to sit in front of Tony again, face to face.

‘You’re pale and sweaty. And you’re looking away from me. You’re scaring me, Tony.’

‘Rhodey –’

‘Let me fucking help you, my lone gunslinger,’ Rhodey murmurs and Tony smiles for a second at the name Rhodey’s been calling him for decades now, since he got the glimpse of how much of a lone man Tony can be sometimes. Most of the time, when he’s not pretending.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Tony blurts out and closes his eyes. Rhodey’s arm finds its way back onto Tony’s back and a moment later his face is buried in Rhodey’s chest and he’s curled up and nested between Rhodey’s body and the sofa.

‘It wasn’t you?’ Rhodey repeats softly, waiting for the rest of the story.

‘It was Toma,’ Tony says, his voice almost trembling, muffled by Rhodey’s clothes. ‘The guy who kidnapped me, it was him. I didn’t – I never wanted, I begged him not to, but he knew I used to, he knew and he knew how to make it all come back and I couldn’t do anything, I had to let him, and then –’

‘Calm down,’ Rhodey whispers into Tony’s hair. ‘Hey, calm down. I’ve got you. It’s fine. All right? It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me anything more if you don’t want to.’

‘I want,’ Tony says, ignoring the nausea acting up again. He’ll be fine. He will.

‘Does anyone know?’

‘JARVIS knows bits and pieces. Sorry, J,’ Tony adds. JARVIS has been everything Tony has ever dreamed of, and more. And Tony is aware he hurt the A.I. with his evasiveness and his actions, and, maybe most of all, by cutting JARVIS out.

‘Breathe, Tony,’ Rhodey reminds him.

‘I am,’ Tony replies, but does take a deep breath, just in case, and then he talks and he doesn’t even bother to mind when he’s shaking or crying or acting like a baby and a sissy, because it doesn’t matter. Rhodey doesn’t mind. Rhodey knows.

When Tony finishes, they sit in silence for a few long minutes, listening to each other’s breathing, and it’s Rhodey to speak up first.

‘Tony, you really shouldn’t have lied about that.’

‘I know. But I couldn’t – I couldn’t tell them. It’s that – I just couldn’t.’

‘I get it,’ Rhodey replies and Tony knows that he does understand. ‘You should never be ashamed of being hurt. We had this talk countless times; I know you’re a total badass and you own half of the world, but man, you’re only human.’

‘I’m a superhero,’ Tony reminds Rhodey, because it seems like something big. Like something to hold onto, even if he stopped saving the worlds a few months earlier.

‘So you built yourself a suit of armor and saved the world with it. That’s amazing, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less vulnerable than any of us.’

‘I know I made bad decisions that landed me here,’ Tony says, avoiding s direct reply to Rhodey’s words. Rhodey approves of the admission, he can tell. Rhodey’s always been one for total honesty with yourself and Tony knows it works, but sometimes he’s too much of a coward. ‘But I want to fix it now, okay? I want to go back to before. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t.’

‘I believe you,’ Rhodey assures him. ‘And I’m here. As long as you need. They’ll let me stay if it’s an Iron Man situation. Is it an Iron Man situation?’

Tony smiles weakly at the hidden question. He’s been honestly thinking about that and despite everything that has happened, he can’t really imagine going back to permanently _not_ being Iron Man. He misses it so fucking much.

‘Yeah, I think it is.’

‘Well then, I’m staying with you for a few weeks and I’m gonna make sure you’re fine. JARVIS, are there any drugs in the house?’

‘Sir threw all of them out before he left,’ JARVIS supplies and Rhodey actually looks proud. Tony doesn’t blame him for asking the A.I., he wouldn’t trust himself if he were Rhodey. Not yet. Not completely.

‘You’ll need to tell them,’ Rhodey adds when they are both on their feet and stretching their back and legs after sitting in strange positions for so long. ‘Or I can tell them for you.’

‘You shouldn’t –’

‘I know, theoretically, you should be the one to tell everyone and fix everything by yourself, even if with help, because that’s how things work and that’s how you make things right. But you are _not_ the one to blame here. You were an idiot when you were eighteen and taking too damn much drugs, but now, you are the victim.’

Tony flinches at that word and Rhodey notices, of course.

‘You need to come to terms with that, too.’

‘I’ll try,’ Tony promises. ‘I will.’

 

**1991/2**

_The third doctorate is never finished. It takes longer than the previous two because Tony’s doing a much complex work that includes experiments and endless trials and failures and it takes time. More often than not he’s_ taking his time _what means wasting his time. He’s talking himself into insanity and having dreams so vivid that he wakes up drenched in sweat and wonders if they really were just dreams because they certainly don’t feel like just dreams. It’s just a step away from paranoia and two steps away from hallucinations and Tony is slightly surprised it took him that long to get to this point._

_It seems like a few people notice something is off with him, but then the world is not ready for Tony Stark, drugged or not. So Tony ignores them._

_Rhodey is still there and back, always training, always having something here or somewhere else, always moving, in in a way Tony envies him so much because he’s doing something meaningful with his life. He’s doing_ something _with his life and it’s enough. And Tony is still buried deep under the research that just won’t come together and he’s losing himself._

_At some point he spends five days – after checking himself in – on a mental ward because he scared himself with his thoughts. He doesn’t tell Rhodey until half a year later and Rhodey reacts the way he always does: he hugs Tony close and whispers to him that it’s gonna be okay, as if his words had some magical power._

_‘I’m going to be home for a few long months after this one training,’ he says in November. ‘Just hang in there and I’m gonna be here for you. I can’t stop now. I wish I could, you know that, right? I wish I could be with you. I don’t hate anything more than seeing you sinking deeper and deeper, Tony. Just hang in there.’_

_‘I’m that pathetic,’ Tony laughs because the drug makes him giddy and excited and energetic. ‘I’m gonna be here, but you don’t need to come. I did this to myself.’_

_‘You didn’t,’ Rhodey protests. Tony laughs again._

_‘Sure I did. You told me to be smarter and I wasn’t.’_

_‘You know what I read once somewhere?’ Rhodey asks and Tony narrows his eyes at him. ‘That you always have to remember that an addiction is a response to being hurt in one way or another. People that are perfectly okay won’t turn to drugs. It’s always looking for something you can’t find, it’s always running, and it’s not your fault, It’s the fault of what hurt you.’_

_‘That’s kinda silly,’ Tony declares._

_‘Maybe. But it’s true, too,’ Rhodey counter and they both know he’s right._

_But it doesn’t help. Tony only feels like the older he gets, the more conscious he is about everything, and he wants to run away even farther but there is no running away now._

_And then in December Howard and Maria die in a car accident._

_Rhodey comes back from his training-whatever even though he’s in the middle of it. He takes Tony’s hand and leads him and guards him for the next few days. Stark family lawyers and assistants and all the other people take care of the funeral._

_Tony doesn’t remember the ceremony much. He knows he didn’t cry. That much he knows._

_A few days later he tells Rhodey that he’s going into rehab because he has to and he wants to. He leaves everything behind, his temporary girlfriend, the doctorate, his apartment, everything, and swears to himself never to go back. He doesn’t._

_It takes months for Tony to get his shit together, but when he finally comes back to the real world, he is a different person. He knows what he has to do, he remembers what he dreamed about when he was getting his previous doctorates and that’s his motivation: he’s an idealist. A futurist. He’s been wasting those gifts on some random half-useless theoretical research, but now it’s time to announce his presence, make up for all the lost years and_ rule the world _._

_With Rhodey as his shadow, always, feeding his ideas, and with Obie reminding him of the reality, he’s going to make it work._

**2014/5**

Tony and Rhodey spend five weeks in Malibu, managing Tony’s irritation and depression and sleep problems and headaches and everything that is called the withdrawal phase – up to ten weeks, according to professional books. They manage cravings, during which Tony hates himself more than anything else and hides standing in the shower under a stream of hot water, in a dark room, but Rhodey is always there. Sometimes he lays in the floor, trying to distract himself from the pull by the freezing touch of marble underneath his body and sometimes he loses himself to his work and designs for eight hours straight, until his eyes and his back hurt like hell, and Rhodey is always there and he lets him.

But in the end the cravings go away, mostly, the little scarce annoying ones can stay with Tony for  a few more months, but he’s good. He’ll be good. He knows he can manage them.

It’s amazing to feel like a human again, not like a fucking animal. To be in control of yourself, in a complete and breathtaking control of your life that’s not a deception and doesn’t mean you’ve got to fight with yourself all the time to keep up your appearance.

It feels great to a simple and honest self, losing the cocoon of hatred and suffering. It’s beautiful to respect yourself, and it feels like healing.

***

Tony sends a message to Pepper telling her that he’s okay and cleaning himself up and that he’s with Rhodey. Pepper calls him back and talks for half an hour, cursing him for disappearing and making her heart stop and scaring her like that, alternated with apologies for the row and no coming after him, even though they both know that even if someone did want pay him a visit, Tony wouldn’t let them in.

He tells Pepper that he will come back to New York in a few weeks and that’s what he really plans to do.

He calls Rave, too, and assures the man that he’s doing fine with the help of him friend and then visits him before going back to New York, bringing him a set of tailored clothes in exchange of the one he got, and a customized cleaning bot that can find lost needles and buttons in addition to getting rid of every stray piece of thread in the universe.

***

When they are back in New York, after Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it’s Rhodey to tell the team. Tony tries, but when he sits in front of them plus Pepper, feeling their stares – not judging him, not anymore, but still stares – he can’t make himself say a word.

‘It’s an incredible trauma, Tony, and don’t try to deny it,’ Rhodey told him a few hours earlier on a plane. ‘It’s okay if you have problems with dealing with it. It takes time.’

Tony tried to protest because hey, he didn’t want to call himself a victim, still, but then JARVIS pointed out that what’s happened to him was basically the same thing that rape is: an non-consensual violation of one’s body and therefore mind, and the only difference is that it’s not in sexual context.

JARVIS is right. He always is.

So Tony doesn’t beat himself up for not being able to open up in front of his teammates and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, because he had five weeks to make up his mind and he decided that he wants them to know. Not to prove them wrong – the whole argument and the fallout were as much his fault as theirs – but to make things straight because they deserve it.

They all look away when Rhodey explains what happened when Tony was in captivity and he suddenly feels invisible, but Rhodey fixes his stare on Tony and makes him smile. Tony can tell that they are angry at him for hiding the truth, it’s perfectly understandable, he promised them he was fine and that he was _just_ tortured psychologically, _just_ a bit. He realizes they are not really angry with him but with Toma.

The realization doesn’t stop him from leaving the room and throwing up in the bathroom.

Pepper comes after him, helps him clean up, and holds him in a close embrace for far too long for a hug, but he doesn’t mind.

‘Can I do anything, Tony?’ she asks quietly.’

‘Don’t cry,’ Tony replies quickly, noticing tars forming in her eyes, and she blinks them away.

‘Can we do anything?’ Bruce ask, looking like a kicked puppy and Tony can guess he’s beating himself up for not noticing. Tony decides that he needs to find something to cheer Bruce up, because he’s not going to have people sad because of him.

‘Don’t treat him like he’s going to break,’ Rhodey replies for Tony and they share a grin. ‘No, really, don’t, because it’s easier to deal with things and remember how to get around a normal life when everyone else is normal.’

‘Sure thing,’ Clint says, glancing at Tony quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid Tony’s raised eyebrow.

‘I just can’t believe we haven’t noticed anything until you were drugged out of your mind, Tony,’ Steve adds, sounding confused and apologetic. Tony half-pities Cap because while he’s a great guy, he’s always confused and gets sad so easily.

‘You didn’t notice because you’ve never been around Tony on drugs. He’s himself, only _more_. More of _everything_ and you think it’s just Tony being Tony,’ Rhodey explains and Tony wants to laugh, because that’s so accurate that it’s absurd. ‘Also, we’re getting rid of all alcohol in the tower, and you get to keep your medication in your private rooms only for a few months at least –’

‘We?’ Natasha questions, blinking exactly twice.

‘I told my superiors I need a long stay here for superhero reasons. You know how things are. Here I am and I’m staying.’

‘Good, James, I’m so glad,’ Pepper says and gives Rhodey a look, but Tony can read it, too. It says _I’m glad you’re here because we’ve all failed him and you understand him better than we all do, combined, and you’re good for him_.

‘We shall feast in honor of our friend being lost-and-found,’ Thor declares, looking questioningly between Tony and Rhodey.

Tony nods at Thor who beams, takes a deep breath and puts one arm around Rhodey’s back. His turn.

‘So, off to the kitchen we march, shoo,’ he says and everyone turns around to go, most of them rolling their eyes at Tony being Tony. ‘Thanks for saving my little life again, cupcake,’ Tony adds and Rhodey looks at him pointedly.

‘The pleasure is all mine, at least as long as you service me War Machine or until the next prank you pull,’ Rhodey replies, his eyes shining. ‘And the life, it’s not so little.’

‘No, it suddenly got bigger,’ Tony says, wonder in his voice, because it feels like he and the team can genuinely work out this time.

‘I’m gonna need to find you a new nickname, lone gunslinger.’

‘You bet,’ Tony  replies and nudges Rhodey to follow the team.

‘You’re gonna be fine?’ Rhodey asks once again before they enter the now loud kitchen.

‘With all the team cuddles I’m gonna get now if I make puppy eyes?’ Tony laughs, but then he looks Rhodey in the eyes and adds, ‘even if it’s gonna take years.’

‘And you’ll talk to me and to them if anything happens?’

‘I will,’ Tony says and it’s a promise. ‘Besides, between you and J I’ve got all the therapy I need. You know that.’

Rhodey nods sharply and Tony takes a step to walk into the kitchen, but Rhodey stops him.

‘No bullshit?’

‘No bullshit,’ Tony assures him. ‘You knew I never wanted to repeat the experience. I can say the same thing right now. _Never_.’

‘Go mingle with your heroes, then,’ Rhodey says, letting go of Tony’s wrist. ‘And make sure there’s steak. I need to make a call.’

‘Tell them Iron Man neeeeds you,’ Tony shouts across the room as Rhodey walks away.

If Tony’s going to catch up with all the work he’s been neglecting recently, and with normal life, he’s gonna need a second head to work for him instead of a cocaine-fueled brain. Rhodey will be here for him.

There are going to be apologies now, too, and team members visiting him one by one, casually and inconspicuously, and Tony hopes they’re going to find the balance they all need.

‘It’s good to _really_ be back,’ Tony tells JARVIS.

‘It’s good to _really_ have you back, sir,’ the A.I. replies in the same soft tone.

He has lost a year. They have all lost a lot, because _she_ doesn’t share. Any time Tony shared with _her_ is her and not his – and there are no compromises. No in-betweens. It’s black and white.

A moment later he realizes that he’s been tracing his arms where Toma’s needles punctured his skin, so he shakes his head, takes a breath and steps into the kitchen.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took that long to finish. I had a few k written but then I decided I need to start from the beginning and it got out of hand and all the mess, but now I'm done. And I will always, always finish my stories, in case you're wondering :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this overdue piece. Thank you for your patience and for staying with me! <3


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